By Eric Martin
Perth’s disadvantaged are finding themselves even more vulnerable as fear and COVID-19 quarantine restrictions keep people home.
Those reliant on services such as meal provision and the social interaction provided by agencies like The Shopfront, find themselves reluctant to venture out and seek the aid they require
“From where we are, we’re actually seeing a huge drop off: we’ve gone from doing roughly 280 lunches a week to about 80,” Mr Damian Walsh, Director of The Shopfront said.
“Our food hampers, we did about 50 to 80 a week but the people are just not coming in, the ones who are, are locals. We’re not getting people from across the metro area like we were.”
He says that people are unwilling now to put themselves at risk to travel across the city for assistance.
“Yet that need is still there in the community. I compare it with some of the other agencies that do similar work, some have closed totally and others like us are working a reduced service.”
Regarding the recently announced increase in Newstart and other Centrelink payments, Mr Walsh commented that the financial impact has been mixed.
“I’ve got two different stories to tell about that: one is an absolute yes, I’ve had people saying that to me,”
The current quarantine measures have only seriously been in place for some four weeks yet already, their effects on the mental health of Australians are noticeable to front-line workers such as Mr Walsh, who is concerned about the potential harm caused if these necessary measures are mandated to continue by the Government.
“The biggest concern that has been expressed to me is the anxiety. A lot of people who are vulnerable often have underlying mental health issues, such as anxiety. Depression is often spoken a lot about but it’s anxiety that is the key, and when you get people who are anxious and all they hear is bad news and they can’t get out, that’s when problems can occur.
“One of the unique things about The Shopfront is that it has been a place where people can come and just ‘be’, relax and feel safe. Now they can’t come, they can come and get a sandwich or a food hamper, but they can’t stay. And so that human contact, which we have prided ourselves on, is the one that people are missing out on.”
Access to technology is also a challenging issue for many disadvantaged people, something that is exacerbating the effects of social isolation.
“As an example, we had one fellow who was really concerned: he’s now looking after his child at home, but they don’t have a computer; they were going to the library and doing school homework there. But now the libraries are closed. These kids don’t have access to computers, they can’t get access to education.”
“And that’s really raising his levels of anxiety, because he can’t help them. He was like, ‘well look, do I have to go and steal something to help them. How do I help my kids?’”
“Unfortunately, the ones who are the most vulnerable are the ones who are also copping this the worst.”
The Shopfront has had to cut back on most of its services, yet is still able to provide a lunch (usually sandwiches) to those locals who are able to make it in.
“We still have the GP from Homeless Healthcare, but all the other services we’ve had to cut.”
“A lot of our volunteers are over 70 or are caring for elderly parents, which is another reason that we’ve had to cut back on services, they don’t want to expose their family to the risks associated with them working out in the community.”
“It’s multifaceted. There’s only three of us, and if anyone of us got sick, or one of our family members got sick and we had to self-isolate, we’d have to shut, we just don’t have the personnel.
“I think prayer is about helping people to connect with other people, I’d be praying for connection. If you’re just giving someone else a wave on the street, just acknowledging them, sometimes that’s a huge thing if you’ve got no-one else. Just knowing that we’re in this together, so that people know they’re not on their own.”
This week Western Australia saw the number of cases of people with COVID-19 slowly rise to 527 with the WA Department of Health reporting only four new cases, as at 3pm Tuesday 14 April.
Nationally there were 41 cases reported yesterday, a significant decrease on the previous daily average of 81, bringing the Australian total to 6,400.
According to the Department of Health, the national rate of increase of new cases over the past 24 hours is now around one per cent. This has declined from two per cent reported this time last week. However, it is too soon to tell whether this trend will be sustained.
There are currently 32 confirmed COVID-19 patients in Perth metropolitan hospitals (down from 54 this time last week), with 12 in ICU.
The number of recovered cases in WA is now 296 and to date, 23,870 Western Australians have tested negative for COVID-19, with 4,947 of these from regional WA.