Doctors should be seeing patients, not protesting coal exports, right?

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Nurses should be bandaging wounds and vaccinating children, not blockading the Port of Newcastle. The place where physios and dietitians belong is beside the clients who need them.

Well, we are there, in your emergency department, by your hospital bedside, in your GP clinic and local health centre. We're checking your blood pressure, treating your diabetes, screening for cancer, immunising you for flu.

We're listening to your fears, comforting you after the funeral, supporting you to get back to work. We go to work every day because we care about the health and futures of our communities.

In the last days of November, some of us are stepping out of the wards and paddling into the waves to Blockade the Port of Newcastle.

We will be joining Rising Tide to protest the ongoing export of fossil fuels.

We already see the impacts of climate change in our daily work.

The rising numbers of people presenting to emergency with respiratory distress, cardiac emergencies and heat stroke as bushfires, heatwaves, air pollution and unstable weather worsens.

The grief and trauma our communities face after more floods and fires. The anxiety our young patients carry as they face an........

© Canberra Times