Gina McMaster works to help flood-affected Ballina residents

A Ballina health worker gives her time to help support flood victims while dealing with her own office being inundated. Now she’ll be better supported to continue the life-changing work.

One Ballina resident is going above and beyond to help heal the hearts of flood-ravaged residents.

Psychologist Gina McMaster launched Healing and Resilience Australia (HARA) to help bring mental health support to flood victims, all while dealing with her own office being hit by the devastating floods.

The office, which Ms McMaster shares with other psychologists, was hit by 20cm of floodwater from the nearby Richmond River back in February of 2022.

“We thought we were okay at first because we washed everything out and a lot of our walls are concrete and we were newly painted so we thought we were weatherproof to an extent,” she said.

“We weren’t, and after about two or three weeks, everything started bubbling and all the tiles came up and then we realised there was water underneath the dry tiles.

“It wasn’t safe for us to be here anymore because all of our clients - by the end of the consult - they had started coughing and (had) sore throats.”

She watched as her home in central Ballina narrowly skirted flood damage while neighbours were struck.

“(I was watching) big trucks wanting to get through the floodwaters and sending waves,” she said.

“When you’re holding on by a centimetre or two, those waves as the trucks went through were very disheartening.”

Her vulnerable parents in nearby Wardell were also cut off in floodwaters and couldn’t communicate with Ms McMaster.

The “confronting and shocking” devastation was something Ms McMaster had never seen during her time in Ballina, leading her to jump to provide mental health assistance and therapy.

“I could of gone along like I did before and just saw the 16 people a week I used to see but given the number of people we need to help, it’s not going to cut it,” she said.

“If you can help people earlier on, they’re less likely to develop more severe mental health problems.”

Ms McMaster also started a fortnightly spot on Paradise FM to help out listeners.

When the floods hit Northern Rivers earlier this year, News Corporation Australia announced a $1 million commitment to hard hit communities.

Our News In The Community program has been working with St Vincent de Paul and other charity groups on the ground to allocate the funds.

Local Heroes Rebuilding Communities.

As part of that commitment, News Corporation Australia has donated a total of $200,000 to nine flood relief community initiatives and one flood-affected individual in the worst-hit regions —20,000 of which was donated to Wardell Core for its crucial assistance — $20,000 was donated to Ms McMasters for her crucial assistance helping Ballina Shire residents.

She said that money would help her work giving other therapists a voice and particularly helping the impacted farmers of the region.

Sunshine Sugar is reported to have suffered at least $45 billion worth of damage to its mills.

Ms McMaster said this impacted heartbroken farmers who were already changing harvest methods due to the sheer amount of debris left in fields.

“If you think of someone who is a sugarcane farmer, they’re on their land (and) we’ve just started harvesting season, they don’t have time to come into town and see a psychologist or anything like that,” she said.

“These are really tough people, they’ve been through all sorts of things in the past but never as big as this.

“It’s just coming at them from all angles.”

For more information or to help, contact Ms McMaster on [e-mail]

Download a copy of the R U OK? Mateship Manual to find out how you can help someone doing it tough after natural disaster.