With COVID-19 sweeping through Indigenous communities in western NSW, a Waminda Aboriginal Women's Health staff member said it's "a heavy thing" to watch, but added the local community remains resilient.
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Executive manager of health and wellbeing at Waminda and Jerrinja woman Hayley Longbottom said the South Coast Aboriginal community "feeling the effects" of the federal government's handling of the vaccine rollout.
"There's no word to describe. I don't think disappointed cuts it," she said.
"I can't speak on behalf of the community out (west). But for all our people, we are all feeling the effects of the (vaccine) stuff up.
"We will do what we do best and we put things in place for us to overcome it, like we do with everything."
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Miss Longbottom said Waminda is administering the COVID-19 vaccine and the uptake from the local community has been high.
Identified by the Commonwealth Department of Health as "a clearly defined vulnerable community", Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were made a priority group in the vaccine rollout.
Yet data from the Australian Bureua of Statistics Departmment of Health shows the vaccination rates among Indigenous people are significantly lower than non-Indigenous people in most states and territories.
In NSW, 31.5 per cent of non-Indigenous people are fully vaccinated compared to 14.8 per cent of Indigenous people, as of August 23.
There are currently 77 coronavirus cases in Wilcannia which has a population of 720 - the highest transmission rate in NSW.
There are currently 665 active cases of COVID-19 in the western local health district, 65 per cent of who are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
506 of those cases are in Dubbo.
Read more: Dubbo is epicentre of rural NSW outbreak
While no confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been detected in the Shoalhaven, NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro confirmed there were viral fragments of the virus detected in the Bomaderry sewage plant in Wednesday's press conference, September 2.
Miss Longbottom said she wasn't overly concerned the virus would reach the local Indigenous community, however acknowledged we are living "in a pandemic" and will be as prepared as possible if the virus arrives on our doorstep.
"It's taken such a long time for COVID to affect our communities and that's because we know how to look after each other and we know how to protect our communities. And we'll continue to do that," said Miss Longbottom.
"We're in a pandemic, so we're not acting like it's not going to come here. We're just making sure we've got everything in place and going through everything to ensure that we're safe."
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Miss Longbottom stressed that the South Coast Indigenous community are resilient and encouraged local mob to look after one another during these challenging times.
"It's always important to protect our mob and always doing extra for that to happen, regardless of the pandemic," she said.
"It's important we treat this as such with anything that's going on, whatever the risk. With the bushfires and floods and now COVID, within our communities there's always a focus on caring about each other and looking out for each other.
"It's how we work as people and it's how we overcome strengthened and it's how we've survived over the last 250 years."
To book a COVID-19 vaccine appointment at Waminda, call reception at (02) 4421 7400.
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