Nurses say no to CSG in New South Wales

Eve Jeffery

Local nurses are voicing their concerns about the threat to health in a submission to the government objecting not only to the Santos Narrabri Coal Seam Gas Project, but to all CSG mining across NSW.

It was following a successful motion put forward by the Lismore Base Hospital branch of the New South Wales Nurses and Midwives Association that the a submission was lodged.

‘As nurses and midwives we believe that an ecologically sustainable environment promotes health and wellbeing. 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 wellbeing, 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% 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. ‘We urge everyone to make your voice heard by lodging a submission.

The 7,000 page EIS can be viewed here.

The community can respond to the EIS here.

Submissions close next Monday, May 22.