00:00For Dr Anita Hutchison, seeking help to escape a violent relationship was hard.
00:07Can't you just forgive him? Can't you just get over it?
00:10It really does leave an impression that you're not worthy,
00:15that your problem isn't big enough to tackle.
00:18A decade on, the impact of those words still lingers.
00:21Second guess, delay things, not do things,
00:25really put it to the back of my mind because it's too hard to deal with.
00:31Now a GP, Dr Hutchison is part of a two-year pilot program
00:35intended to teach doctors to recognise and respond
00:39to domestic, family and sexual violence
00:42and then refer their patient to a support service.
00:45We know that for many victim survivors,
00:47often the first person they may speak to about the violence that's occurring
00:52is their GP or an allied health worker.
00:55It's estimated a GP sees at least five women a week
00:58who have been victims of intimate partner violence in the past 12 months.
01:02The federal government is putting $4.3 million into the ACT program,
01:07out of a total of $45 million that's funding others like it around the country.
01:12The pilot will be run by the Domestic Violence Crisis Service
01:16and the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre.
01:18For many people, a GP is a constant source of connection
01:23and it is a legitimate source of connection,
01:25particularly those who may be experiencing significant amounts
01:28of coercive control or technology stalking and the like.
01:32Both doctors and the support services warn this program
01:35could add extra pressure on already strained services.
01:39It's not actually helping to buffer the backflow into the service sector.
01:44But all agree new approaches need to be tried.
01:48For more UN videos visit www.un.org
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