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, after a short stint back in suburbia during which my beautiful daughter gave birth to another delightful member of the Jones mob, I've run away to the outback again. This time to Lake Nash, which is North East of Alice, sort of. It took Central Australian Health 3 goes to decide where to actually send me. First I signed a contract to go to Lake Nash...then they rang me to ask if Id be willing to go to Hermansburg instead...then when I got to Alice on sunday I got another phone call late in the afternoon asking me to go to yet another place further away... Hermansburg had mobile access and a museum Id always wanted to go to so I said Id prefer to go to Hermansburg..soooo....I spent monday sitting in the RAHC office twiddling my thumbs and exchanging gossip with the delightful staff there waiting for the head honcho to come out of a meeting and share their decision as to where they actually wanted me. And it turned out to be here...which incidentally was the place they...

Full moon...last night I had a lovely campfire set up outside the unit so I could sit and contemplate the amazing huge full moon rising overhead...but of course, I was on call...and as soon as I had lit the fire, people turned up wanting to see me: "Sista! Hot baby!"..and indeed it was...poor little mite, a 2 year old with a fever over 39 C...and a nasty history of chronic lung infections, failure to thrive, low iron... I gave her a shot of antibiotics, some panadol, and went back to my fire...and prayed I had done the right thing in sending her home....evacuations at night are a nightmare....a one hour drive over the WA border to the night airstrip for starters.... Seems my thoughts were heard, cos she made it through the night and came back this morning still breathing. But I decided to no take any more chances, so I've been sitting in the clinic all morning waiting to hear from the Royal Flying Doctor service what time the plane will get to the local airstrip here (...

Sorry, no photos here this time guys... The browser in the clinic is so antiquated the blog program doesn't work properly.... And I don't dare muck around with the computer too much, the clinic manager isn't exactly the friendly sharing type to put it mildly. Had a bit of a territorial dispute on the first day with her...I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and say her rudeness was due to overwork and exhaustion, but it still doesn't make up arrogance, dressing me down in the middle of a consult with a client or for a half arsed handover leaving me with no idea of where anything is or how 99% of the procedures in the clinic actually work, before she dissapeared to Darwin for a week. The other agency nurse who arrived with me is luckily amazingly experienced, and an absolutely amazing woman to boot, so we've managed to sort out things quite nicely between us. The Desert is dry. Really dry. You don't realize what that actually means till you are out h...

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...

Well, that last post of mine ended the hatchling relationship...self fufilling prophecy? Or just a sign of exactly what I was talking about.... Dumped New Style, blocked on facebook, skype addy removed...and suddenly the connection you had is dead in the water, as if it had never existed. The photo on the FB chat thingy, dark eyes and quirky grin above that wide manly chin that made your heart beat that little bit faster every time you saw he was online is suddenly replaced with a blank human outline and the name "facebook user" and finally: closed as a contact on the dating site. More than 2800 messages.....a relationship in words and thoughts...did I just imagine it all? What the hell happened there? I ended up taking that next road trip...and cried all the way up there..and most of the way back.  Visiting old friends who've known me for over 20 years and asking for their opinions and some kind of explanation and feedback to WTF just blew up in my face and WHY??...