Teachers at a New South Wales (NSW) south coast school thought their young students were coping well after the Black Summer bushfires–until wild winds swept through the playground.
Royal Far West chief executive Jacqui Emery was at the school after the catastrophic fires as part of the rural children’s charity wellbeing program in disaster-affected regions.
She saw the moment things changed.
“The kids were really acting out as soon as these winds picked up and the teachers recognised, ‘Oh, maybe we do have a problem’,” she recalled to AAP.
“It’s a sad but hopeful story, in a way, because that’s what we do: we’ve been working with teachers and parents and children to be able to talk about the emotions, what they experienced, to be able to process it.”
The charity, which runs a pediatric development program for hundreds of rural children, is warning of poor access to specialists in country areas when many families are recovering from rolling disasters.
Pediatricians have either closed their books or have long waiting lists for behavioural and developmental referrals across areas including Queensland, Victoria and the Kimberley region in WA, Ms Emery said.
The organisation has been told public outpatient clinics have waiting lists of up to three years and as many as 700 patients waiting in parts of regional NSW.
“What that means for children with developmental challenges is that they can’t get the right kind of help during a very important developmental window,” Ms. Emery said.
“As they start to get older ... if they do have a challenge, it’s much tougher to shift.”
NSW Health said child development services were a responsibility shared by the public and private health systems, GPs and non-government organisations.
The department said it funds part of Royal Far West’s program, which complements the government’s First 2000 Days child health strategy and other measures to support at-risk children in the bush.
A shortage of specialists in rural areas was uncovered in federal and state health inquiries, which heard of families travelling hundreds of kilometres for care and years-long waits for appointments.
The federal government in July announced strategies to boost the workforce.
It will offer more Commonwealth-supported university places for rural-trained medical students while also approving an expansion of the single employer model in NSW that allows doctors to train in public and private settings.
It has also launched Head to Health mental health clinics in rural areas, offering pediatric services in some states.
Ms Emery said improved models should also include consistent funding for charities, which can ease the burden on health services.
“We stand here at the ready to help support these really big social problems, and we can do more,” she said.
“A child can’t be siloed, you’ve got to look at a child and their life in a really holistic way.”
