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  • 9 minutes ago
As Whyalla comes to terms with the loss of at least 600 jobs at the city's steelworks, there are concerns for the mental health of those directly affected and the wider community. In the wake of this week's decision to shut down the plant's ailing blast furnace, some are calling for a boost to support services, as residents grapple with long-term uncertainty.

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00:02Before the rebuild, there'll be tough times in Wyala.
00:07There's a lot of anxiety.
00:10Members of the local men's shed have lived through decades of ups and downs at the steelworks
00:15but with 600 plus jobs gone this week, the community here is growing weary.
00:20Although people like to think we're resilient, there's been a lot of knocks over the years
00:27and I think people are getting tired of being resilient.
00:30Mental health worker Amy Morgan says there's already been an increase in demand for support services.
00:36For what we're going through, this is really large and I don't think there's going to be enough help everywhere.
00:42She knows personally what people are going through.
00:45Her husband, one of 40 workers that now shut down Iron Barren Mine, whose future is uncertain.
00:51So thinking about the fact that my husband might not have a job and we might potentially have to move
00:56is quite scary.
00:57There are now calls for more mental health support.
01:00What we need right now is federal and state governments to put in surge funding into mental health support into
01:07this community.
01:08There's already a three month waiting list.
01:10The state government says it's committed an extra million dollars to the wellbeing issue.
01:15We know when things like this happen and it's what we saw with Holden's as well
01:18that there needs to be those extra supports to get around families that might be affected, that might be concerned.
01:23Locals and workers are now not only dealing with the fallout from the job losses announcement.
01:28There's also ongoing uncertainty around when a buyer will be found and when the steelworks will return to full production.
01:35The flow on effects, far reaching.
01:37500 families is probably 10% of the town.
01:46It's hard to imagine that that's not going to have an impact.
01:49There's no sense of that may be a factor.
01:49If we'll see a lot of the money, we'll continue to get some information.
01:49That means we need to keep an eye on our own.
01:51Like the reason we wanted to keep an eye on the building.
01:51It's hard to keep an eye on our own.
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