Nattie Bong from Mareeba made the choice to get vaccinated against COVID-19 to protect herself and her mob, especially her Nanna.

As she’s the first point of contact for a lot of people at the Mulungu Health Service, Nattie wanted to protect the clients of Mulungu as well as herself and her wider networks.

“So, I wanted to make sure that I was vaccinated just because my role is very interactive with the community, being the first point of contact for anyone visiting the Mulungu admin office,” Ms Bong said.

“I thought it would be necessary for me to be fully vaccinated, and for my home life as well.”

Although Natty is loathe to push her opinions on her mob and make them feel pressured into making a medical decision in haste, she isn’t afraid of talking about her vaccination.

“I’ve been telling people that I’ve been vaccinated,” she said.

“I’ve been letting them know my experience of being vaccinated.

“I haven’t been trying to coerce anybody to get vaccinated, but I have been telling them to definitely look into it and consider getting done themselves as well.”

Nattie’s experience of the jab was just about as easy as one can hope for as well, no pain, no fatigue, just a feeling of, “it working.”

“And the second dose was a breeze, was like nothing.”

Nattie wants the Mareeba mob to go look at non-biased information before making up their mind about the jab.

“I’m a big advocate for people to do their own research and look into it.

“I will say that the number of people that have been vaccinated and there’s no negative outcomes from it, no negative side-effects that people have been dealing with on a grander scale.

“So, I feel that it’s a lot safer than people have been hyping it up to be.

“Look into that a lot more too.

“It’s not here to harm us, it’s here to help us.”

If you would like more information, or to book an appointment contact Mulungu Aboriginal Corporation Primary Health Care Service.