Healthy land, healthy people, says Deloraine’s award winning GP

Dr Nicole Anderson balances her passion for landcare with her career as a GP, splitting her time between Deloraine and her 26 hectare property at Mayberry Photo by Sharon Webb

Sharon Webb

NICOLE ANDERSON decided to work as a doctor in Deloraine so she could indulge her passion for landcare.

She works two days a week at the town’s medical centre and spends the rest of her time rehabilitating her 26 hectare property bordering the Great Western Tiers National Park at Mayberry.

Nicole was announced as Tasmania’s Rural Doctor of the Year in December in recognition of her medical contribution to the Circular Head community, based for 15 years in Smithton as an emergency doctor.

Dr Peter Arvier from the Rural Doctors Association of Tasmania said the award recognises Nicole’s clinical expertise, skill in emergency and aged care, as well as in training medical students, doctors in training and ambulance personnel.

‘Nicole has a wide range of capabilities that go beyond office based medical care’, he said.

‘The Meander Valley is fortunate to have her capability and commitment.’

Nicole’s previous years in medicine have given her a firm principle on which she bases her current lifestyle, that not taking care of the environment creates many of our health problems.

‘We’re seeing really bad examples of that. For example, the worst hayfever season ever, caused by the northern hemisphere grasses we plant’, she said.

‘This is a massive burden for 20 per cent of the population. Australian native grasses don’t cause allergies anywhere near the northern hemisphere grasses.’

Nicole also sees bushfire seasons increasingly creating air pollutants.

‘In the last nine years we’ve had three major bushfires In the North West in 2015–16, we had to move out people for medical reasons.

‘With bushfires we just react. No real mitigation measures are put in place, removing flammable vegetation, creating green breaks and sprinkler systems.

‘It’s just too hard and too difficult politically.’

Nicole’s work in Smithton saw her often on call, a busy life connecting her tightly to the community.

‘It was cradle to grave work, caring for neighbours and people in the community.

‘My job in Deloraine is more relaxed, less responsibility, and more sleep!’ she grinned.

Her work at Mayberry involves the rehabilitation of degraded land. Formerly used as a sheep paddock, the property is gradually being revitalised by the removal of weeds and introduced species, planting native vegetation and renewing waterways degraded by cattle trampling.

Nicole is taking advice from interested locals, including Caveside’s Deb Hunter.

‘No one I’ve ever met knows this place as well as Deb,’ she said. ‘She’s brilliant on what’s above ground but her

knowledge of the subterranean environment is really rare, and she needs to be listened to.

‘For a lot of people what’s under the ground is out of sight, out of mind. If they can’t see it they don’t care.’

Nicole’s award, made by the Rural Doctors Association of Tasmania, came as a surprise to her. ‘When they phoned to tell me I said: An award? How?’

The award considers feedback from other doctors, trainee doctors and nursing staff, who inevitably would admire Dr Anderson’s holistic view of the healthcare she provides.

Commenting on the health problems she sees at the Deloraine and Westbury Medical Centre, Nicole said, ‘Unfortunately Tasmania has a sad record of cancers and chronic non transmissible dis- ease: diabetes, heart and lung disease and obesity.

‘It’s sad, because we have the freshest air in the world, out- door areas for exercise and we can grow our own food.

‘But health comes down to lifestyle choices and education. In rural areas you get generational poor health and people have difficulty breaking out of those cycles.’