MEDIA

What’s On TV? Take Heart!

TV Guide review by Karl Quinn.

Take Heart in The Sydney Morning Herald

NITV

Stan Grant narrates a documentary about the persistence of rheumatic heart disease (RHD) in remote Aboriginal communities.

It follows teenager Liddywoo, who coughs up blood and could die at any moment without emergency surgery, and young Brooklyn, who should do fine if she follows her surgery with daily drug intake and a monthly shot of antibiotics.

It’s caused by a simple strep infection that flourishes in the unsanitary and overcrowded conditions of many remote communities (RHD used to affect poor white communities, too).

Getting rid of it is possible – but means getting rid of poverty, too.

That’s the real challenge implicit in the Closing the Gap project.