Popular Hobart GP and campaigner Juliet Lavers dies

A POPULAR Hobart GP and mental health campaigner has died suddenly in Taroona.

Obituary. Dr Juliet Lavers, February 4, 1958 — February 21, 2019

Dr Juliet Lavers, a general practitioner who passionately campaigned to improve youth mental health services and advocated for environment and social justice issues, passed away unexpectedly on Thursday, February 21, in Taroona.

Juliet was born on February 4, 1958, in Nairobi, Kenya, moving with her family to Adelaide in 1969. She started a medical career during 1982 that took her from Darwin to Burnie in 1986 and then to her long-term home, Hobart, in 1991.

Dr Juliet Lavers was known as a caring GP.

She lived her life with a big heart and a passionate love of animals and nature. Her 61 years was a life of caring, advocacy and adventure driven by a desire to help people and make a better world.

She founded the Silver Shield Animal Club at the Loreto Convent school in Kenya when she was eight and went on to raise and release many orphaned and injured animals.

During 1990, she was impressed to see Ted Mead with an injured royal penguin he had rescued from the south-west coast. The penguin recovered and headed back to Antarctica, and Juliet and Ted later became partners. They explored Tasmania’s wild lands and travelled and worked throughout the Australian mainland — including Juliet working as a GP in a Pitjantjatjara community during 1998.

Ted Mead with partner Juliet Lavers and their son Liam.

She was an exceptionally caring doctor that patients would describe as a model of what a GP should be. Concerned about wider public health issues, she led campaigns against organochlorine discharge from the proposed Wesley Vale pulp mill and the use of atrazine to poison wildlife in plantations.

In 2000, Juliet and Ted became loving parents to Liam who lived a wondrous, healthy and happy life until he suffered from mental illness and took his own life at sixteen. After his death, Juliet was a strong support for Liam’s fellow students and staff at the Hutchins School. Devastated by the loss of her son and deeply concerned at the lack of treatment available to mentally ill young Tasmanians, Juliet campaigned to establish a dedicated child and adolescent mental health ward at the Royal Hobart Hospital. Having already gained the backing of half the state’s lower house MPs, the mental health ward could become another legacy of Juliet’s work.

Dr Juliet Lavers was well loved.

Juliet was greatly loved as a sister and friend. She had enormous generosity of spirit, warmth, humour and was always there to help her friends and family. She will be greatly missed.

She is survived by Liam’s father Ted Mead, her parents Teresa and Tony and sisters Coralie, Rosemary, Shirley and Deborah.

A service will be held at 12:30pm Friday, March 1, at Turnbull Funerals Letitia St, North Hobart.

AHMET BEKTAS,

Friend and business owner

For 24/7 crisis support, contact Kids Helpline www.kidshelp.com.au or call 1800 551 800, Lifeline 131 114, SCBS 1300 659467 or headspace.org.au