Contributed from New South Wales

Opposition to Coal Seam Gas (CSG)mining has become so widespread in Australia that it is arguably involving more people than any other issue.

Nurses from the Lismore Base Hospital branch of New South Wales and Midwives Association decided to put in a submission to to the Department of Planning and Environment, voicing their concerns, about the threat to health and objecting to the Santos Narrabri Coal Seam Gas Project and CSG mining across New South Wales.

‘As nurses and midwives we believe that an ecologically sustainable environment promotes health and well being. We are greatly concerned about the health of communities impacted by CSG’, said Heather Ryan Dunn, midwife and Vice President of the Lismore Base branch of the NSWNMA. ‘We also know that climate change is the biggest threat we are currently facing and that decisions made today will impact greatly on future generations.’

The 20 page submission which includes references to CSG well accidents and risks to human health via contaminated water and air pollution, is one of approximately 12,000 already submitted in response to the EIS, a record breaking and resounding ‘no’ from objectors to the project.

Ms Dunn says that nurses and midwives have a responsibility under their Code of Ethics to value an ecologically sustainable environment that promotes health and well being, and as such, are completely opposed to the proposal by Santos to drill and frack, 850 gas wells through the complex geology of the Great Artesian Basin which lies under 22 percent of Australia.

‘Nurses and midwives have stood proudly with fellow protectors at Bentley and in the Pilliga against CSG and will continue to do so’, she said

In doing this, they joined community members from all walks of life in working together for a common purpose, contributing to a great movement that is making a difference.