A crisis is unfolding in the Far West NSW remote community of Wilcannia where a significant spread of COVID in the community has seen people set up tents in their yards to isolate and the only community shop closed after it was identified as an exposure site.
Professor Susan Green, a Galari woman of the Wiradjuri nation and the Australian Association of Social Workers Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Director tells CAAMA’s Philippe Perez the situation is a humanitarian crisis.
Both state and federal agencies have been scrambling to test and vaccinate the community and around 30 motorhomes have been sent to the community, in an effort to try and provide suitable isolation facilities but the Australian Association of Social Workers claims there is the neglect of people in the community, citing examples like a young Barkindji mother of three small children, asthmatic and infected with COVID-19, barred from entering her local hospital at night.