The Barefoot Healer

My first impression was of neatness and cleanliness. It's a real contrast to the previous community I was on. The yards aren't full of garbage, and theres even the odd bit of lawn and a decorative shrub or two! The people from the community are clean too, with neat brushed hair and clean clothes. Quite a contrast to the last two communities I've been to. And you get the feeling that people here feel a sense of pride..in themselves and their home. The clinic itself is spotless too. The manager here runs the place with a velvet gloved iron fist. Strong, but very caring. She knows every community member, who's related to who and exactly what’s going on with each and every person. And the community seems to love her back too! There's a driver and a community worker, who both double as cleaners too and mop the floors daily, and a young white receptionist who's pretty makeup and elaborative hairclips brighten the place up no end. The community worker is a...

Well, so far it's just been weird and unpredictable. Which I guess is how adventures are supposed to be. After the fiasco with NT health and the 3 changes to where I was actually going, I finally boarded a plane that they had leased just to fly me up to Lake Nash. I felt really special! Normally you see they only do things like that for doctors...but it seems there simply was no other way to get me there... So instead of the usual large airport with all the security I am used to, I got a taxi to a private hangar with a miniature waiting room and free tea and coffee instead of expensive shops. I was introduced personally to “my” pilot, a sweet young dark haired lad, who looked barely old enough to hold a licence. We clambered aboard the tiny little plane, with just a bit more room than your average landcruiser, and he began to go through the checklist, double checking everything with procedure book and fiddling with his instruments. When he got the green light over ...

Well, leaving behind the dating saga for a bit, i'm back in Central Australia for some more adventures-and a much needed cash injection! This time I'm heading out to Docker River, a small community of around 300 people a few hundred km's west of Uluru. I've spent the last few days in Alice Springs, doing some mandatory and pretty useless "training", which as so often in our modern world, consisted of 2 days of lectures about corporate structures, the endless importance of using the correct paperwork, and the odd useful phone number of who to ring when u are trying to organize a plane evac out of the middle of nowhere... I did learn a bit more about the role and training of Aboriginal health workers... It's an odd job that was created to bridge the divide between the white medical system and the communities... Aboriginal health workers basically do nursing work. But their training is aimed specifically at the kind of things needed in remote communities. An...

Life in the outback.... Tennant Creek Raceday was decidedly amusing. Everyone was dressed in their tarted up best...fascinators and short dressed, the men in suits and bright pink shirts... Everyone one from the white community that is, I only saw 2 or three black people. I should really say non indigenous though, there was a good collection of every other race: Maori, Chinese, Asian, Italian, Celts and every mix in-between. I managed to improvise an outfit out of a nightie, some artificial greenery and some hairclips, but the only shoes i had were my boots....and it was a tad cool and windy, so black leggings went with them, grin! Between us, Sue and i managed to lose $20.... My choices actually managed to come last! The 3 dreadlocked hippies are actually from my old home town, Nimbin! They are traveling around Australia, teaching the local kids circus performance arts! How cool is that! On the way home we stopped and filled the car with firewood, still in our pretty dresses, for ano...

My first day in the clinic.... It's all new and pretty...a lovely open round architectural design, painted white and orange...a friendly sunny waiting room and working BP and blood measuring thingies! All the staff seem friendly and open too... I spend the day working with a lovely midwife called Sue, mainly to help me get a hang of how to use the computer system, which of course is a completely different one to the PCIS system I used on Groote last year... (It sucks big time, the usual committee designed monstrosity with multiple double entries for everything...sigh.) Our first pt is an 18 month old boy...who comes accompanied by his 23 yr old mother and 4 other siblings, including a small baby. They are all filthy. And covered in sores. And dressed in filthy and totally inadequate clothes. The Mum speaks very little english, and most of what Sue is saying to her seems to go straight over her head. We manage to work out that the 18 month old is overdue for his vaccinations, which...

Well, I've escaped suburbia and headed back outback for another nursing adventure... this time out in the desert in Central Australia. First stop was Alice springs, to have a day or two of R&R with my mate Mick. Mick has been working on the community mental health team here for the last few months...pretty scary...but he seems to have been enjoying it...and boy was I glad to see him and be enveloped in one of his big bearhugs at the airport! After he dropped me and my ridiculous amount of luggage off at his flat (note to self: In future do NOT pack when you re feeling anxious and pannicky!), I headed off down to Todd mall in search of a coffee. Alice is truly an experience. I'm used to big cities, have lived overseas and have worked with people from many different cultures.....but here the divide between Black and White is So large..... Todd mall is an outside shopping strip, filled with cafes and shops full of brightly colored Aboriginal art printed on everything from clo...