Diane Hood is the CEO of Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC), located in Australia’s red centre north of Alice Springs and covering over 282,000 square kilometres. It has nine isolated service delivery centres and a population of just over 4,000 people spread across the region.

The residents of CDRC are predominantly Indigenous, coming from the oldest continuing living culture in the world. Many of the older residents hold irreplaceable knowledge which must be protected. The Coronavirus is a very serious threat to the communities due to challenges they face; pre-existing health issues; long distances to the medical help that would be needed; overcrowding in houses; and the sharing of resources. It could have a devastating effect, not just on the older generation, but on the culture as a whole.

To help keep Coronavirus from the communities, we are spreading messages of good hygiene practice and physical distancing, abiding by the travel restrictions into the region and cancelling events that involve groups gathering.

The good news is that so far there have been no cases in our communities and no community transmission in Alice Springs, the closest town.

Because our head office is in Alice Springs, the travel restrictions have been a challenge to our staff who would otherwise travel regularly between Alice and the communities. Many have been redeployed, taken on other roles, are conducting meetings by phone, working from home or taking leave. So far we have retained all our staff affected by the Coronavirus pandemic.

I commend our staff for their resilience, flexibility, patience, good humour and great team work during this time!

Diane Hood
Chief Executive Officer
Central Desert Regional Council