Australian healthcare professionals are trading their stethoscopes for protest signs in a dramatic stand against fossil fuel exports. Doctors, nurses, and allied health workers are preparing to join the Rising Tide blockade at Newcastle Port in late November 2025, arguing that climate change represents the most significant health threat of our time.
The Health Impacts Driving Protest Action
These medical professionals aren't abandoning their patients - they're expanding their definition of patient care. Dr Joo-Inn Chew, a GP with over twenty years experience in Canberra general practice and refugee health, explains that healthcare workers already witness climate change consequences in their daily work.
Emergency departments are seeing rising cases of respiratory distress, cardiac emergencies, and heat stroke as bushfires, heatwaves, and air pollution intensify. Communities grapple with trauma after repeated floods and fires, while young patients express overwhelming anxiety about their future. Many wonder whether having children remains responsible in a warming world.
Australia currently ranks as the world's third largest exporter of fossil fuels, a statistic that deeply concerns medical professionals who view continued government approval of new coal and gas projects as medically negligent.
Medical Professionals Breaking Silence
Healthcare workers have historically spoken out about public health threats including smoking, asbestos, and road safety. Now, they're applying the same principle to what they consider an even greater danger.
As neurologist Professor Peter Schofield stated during his arrest at the 2024 blockade, governments are committing ecological malpractice by failing to plan for necessary reductions in coal production and export. He criticized the inadequate funding for transition to alternative energy, leaving workers in the Hunter Valley without proper support.
Rural doctor Dr Elen O'Donnell, who works in aeromedical retrieval and was arrested in Newcastle last year, described witnessing increased death and disease among First Nations communities in Central Australia due to extreme heat. She's cared for people in Tuvalu whose homeland may disappear within her lifetime and observed young people paralyzed by climate anxiety.
From Clinic to Climate Action
These healthcare professionals emphasize that their duty to protect health extends beyond clinic walls. While they continue researching, educating, and implementing sustainable practices within healthcare facilities, many believe the climate crisis demands more drastic action.
The peaceful civil disobedience at Newcastle Port represents their commitment to what they see as a health emergency. With the window for preventing catastrophic climate tipping points rapidly closing, these doctors argue that all citizens must stand up for a liveable future in whatever way they can.
As Dr Chew concludes, the climate crisis threatens the fundamental conditions that human health depends upon. When leaders and fossil fuel companies fail to act with required urgency, healthcare workers feel compelled to use their authority and credibility to sound the alarm.
