Beauty of the bush beckons

9 May 2008

FROM the call of the remote desert to the beat of the tropics, the Northern Territory Government’s Department of Health and Community Services’ Remote Health Services director Noelene Swanson sings the familiar song of the thousands of health professionals working in the territory.

Once you have worked in the territory as a health professional, you are “Hooked… enchanted… addicted… excited… and the experience never leaves you”.

Mrs Swanson has clocked up 10 years with the remote health services, the longest stint in her 30-year global career.

“There is an amazing diversity of opportunity. It’s a demanding job – sometimes 24-hours a day, seven days a week. It’s extremely exciting and culturally enriching and once you have been here, it never leaves you,” she said.

Mrs Swanson’s role as the Northern Territory Government’s director of Remote Health Services involves overseeing 52 primary health care centres scattered over 1.65 million square miles of “some of the remotest parts of Australia”.

Her clients number some 40,000 people living in remote homesteads and Aboriginal communities. They represent the youngest population in Australia with 17,000 clients under the age of 17.

These “amazing” remote health care centres are staffed by a “unique band of people” nurses, Aboriginal health workers, Aboriginal community liaison officers, some doctors, drivers, support staff plus fly-in/fly-out workers from Alice Springs, Darwin and Gove.

“The primary health care professionals work with traditional Aboriginal midwives and healers. They offer a whole range of services from general primary health care and acute emergency services to health promotion and prevention,” she said.

“They perform a wide range of general health care roles through to advanced clinical emergency and intensive roles. Their skills are just amazing,” she said.

Despite the hardships of remote living, it’s clear that the “beauty of the bush”, the Aboriginal culture, the cooperative working relationships and the unique challenges are what attracts and burns deep into the hearts of these unique health workers who initially come for about a year for the experience but end up staying for many more.

The NT Government offers many career opportunities for those serving in these remote areas, with much off-the-job support. Health professionals can pursue higher education at the Darwin and Alice Springs medical university campuses and upgrade their skills with specialist training in areas including chronic disease, emergency care and sexual health.

“It is a very valuable service that we provide and we do make a difference,” Mrs Swanson said.

“When you have been out bush for a few years you are exposed to a wonderful part of the Aboriginal culture that probably 90% of Australians never get the chance to see,” Mrs Swanson said.

Mrs Swanson began her nursing career in 1978 as a trainee in country South Australia. She has since worked in every Australian health jurisdiction except Tasmania, plus the United States, New Guinea and the Tiwi Islands.
 

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