DIABETES EPIDEMIC WESTERN SUBURBS

The Green’s candidate for the State seat of Derrimut, Geraldine Brooks, says the State Government must begin funding and establishing parks in the western suburbs following the release of a report that found the western suburbs are in the grip of a diabetes epidemic.
The Australian Community Centre for Diabetes found one in seven residents of the west have been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes compared with the State average of one in thirty.
According to the report, a staggering one in every three residents aged over 55 living in the western suburb of Ardeer, has diabetes with two new cases diagnosed every day in the City of Brimbank.
Brooks, and a group of parents from Ardeer, spent five years fundraising to turn a large abandoned space that housed a former lead factory into a park, the only park in Ardeer.
Brooks says, “Our community needs safe, green, attractive, destinations that we can walk to. Our community experiences higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and mental illness; with repeated studies showing this is attributable to lower income and lack of open spaces and quality parks. It is discrimination. People living in the east enjoy better health because of greater access to parks.”