It’s Not Easy Being the Vet
BIRDSVILLE/BEDOURIE, FAR SOUTH-WEST QUEENSLAND

Australian Inland Mission nurses never refused treatment to one of God’s creatures in trouble, which often got us into sticky situations dealing with animals. Knowing as much about veterinary work as I did about brain surgery (which amounted to zero), I still couldn’t turn away an animal in distress if I could help it.

While sitting quietly in front of the big white screen waiting for the weekly movie to start rolling, I was called to treat a de-pelted dog that had skinned its back on corrugated-iron sheeting. After reviewing the upset canine in its owner’s backyard, I directed them to bring the cantankerous mutt to the hospital for wound suturing. Under the fluorescent lighting the open wound glistened and the roll of skin and fur gathered near his tail could be pulled back into place and stitched together.As Butch had the reputation of biting anything that moved, I gave him a sedative injection before I started sewing him up as I didn’t intend to become a casualty. Once he was adequately sedated and muzzled, I pulled his pelt back into position and sewed it together with catgut sutures that would dissolve in time and not require removal.

Months later I went up to Bedourie to provide medical cover for the racing carnival and carried a small supply of various narcotic drugs in my shirt pocket in case there was a fall. In my wildest dreams I couldn’t have envisaged being asked to use the strong pain-relieving drugs on a horse. The race meet was a big social gathering for the locals and I enjoyed catching up with folk I hadn’t seen in ages. The nags galloped around the track to the cheers of the locals who had a bet on, while the rest of us gathered at the rail.

It was during the second-last race that a prize-winning mare suddenly came to a stop in the middle of the track and the jockey jumped off her back after hearing a loud crack. He thought she must have broken her leg as she became very distressed and limped off the track favouring her front leg. My knowledge of equine anatomy amounted to zilch so I didn’t offer my services.

Halfway through the last race I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see the concerned racehorse owner who asked if I was carrying any pain medication that I could give his distressed mare. With my brain in overdrive I contemplated what to give a horse as I made my way to the stalls, and the equine gods guided my hovering hand as I checked my cache of narcotics. For no other reason than it felt right, I decided to give the two ampoules of morphine and not one of the synthetic drugs I had with me. Returning home that evening, I had to enter the horse’s name in the drug book to account for the two missing morphine ampoules.

Once the mare was a little more settled she was loaded on the horse float and taken home. Later that evening a vet from the city flew in by charter plane to treat the expensive racehorse and diagnosed a fractured sesamoid bone in the fetlock, which usually meant putting the animal down. The owners wanted to give her every chance of recovery, so kept her in the home paddock for weeks until it became clear that her racing days were over. The mare then took on the role of foster mum for the new foals and spent her days grazing in the nearby fields.

During one of the Flying Doctor visits a month or so later I mentioned that I’d had to treat a horse, and he mentioned that the animal may have collapsed if I’d given it synthetic drugs. That was a close call as I’d been undecided what to give it and may have ended up with a dead horse.

Sue Nilon, retired registered nurse

Bush Vet
NORTHERN TERRITORY

I should have known when I decided in 1993 to go bush, I was probably going to be in for a few surprises. I was advised by a few of my friends already working in the Northern Territory that if I was going to work in remote communities I should practise up on my suturing skills. So I began to practise suturing on a piece of pickled pork. This I am told is the closest thing to human skin and tissue.

I was sent off to a remote community north-east of Alice Springs for my introduction to bush nursing. I was very excited and couldn’t wait to commence working in the clinic the next day. However, when my friends waved goodbye I was very much beginning to feel the apprehension settle.

It was only a few minutes later that one of the community members came to my door saying there had been an accident and could I go with her to the patient? The patient turned out to be a young female dog who had given birth recently to a litter of pups. The problem was she’d been involved in an accident and her teats were hanging off. My enthusiasm by this stage was waning. Never mind, I thought, I can really practise my newly acquired suturing skills. I was hoping to appear very in control, though one look at my face would have given the game away.

I reassured my doggy patient, cleansed the injury site as directed by my CARPA Standard Treatment Manual and my friend’s recent instructions, and went about suturing the new mother’s teats back into pretty much the same place as where they had been earlier in the day. I was so happy to see in the next few days both mother and her babies all feeding naturally.

I have very many happy memories of my time in the Northern Territory and have been very privileged to work with other bush nurses, Aboriginal health workers and all the wonderful resilient Aboriginal people I was proud to have met.

Jennifer Bailey, registered nurse

My Hero
SOUTH AUSTRALIAN/WESTERN AUSTRALIAN BORDER COUNTRY

Years ago I went out to a station that sits just over the SA–WA border on the only hill for hundreds of miles around. I went there to be governess for the friend of a friend I’d done midwifery with. As the station was also the local bush nursing centre (a caravan) and weather reporting station, I ended up doing all sorts of other things.

The only other building was a motel-cum-café/bar, refuelling stop with a small landing strip down near the sand dunes, catty-corner across the highway. At that time the bitumen stopped at the border, a few kilometres back. They were in the process of building a BP service station right on the border, which was completed while I was there. I actually added cleaner to my jobs, while they were building, as there was no-one else to do it.

As the owners of the station were unable to get away together, because of the above commitments, they viewed my arrival with open arms, and promptly decided to take advantage by taking several holidays in Perth. There are many tales to tell, humorous and horrendous, of my time out there, but this one particularly sticks in my memory.

We occasionally got messages via the radio about escaped convicts from Perth, possibly heading across the Nullarbor to try and lose themselves in an eastern city. We also had a young policeman who spent most of his time off fishing, who was supposed to be available to back me up in times of trouble. I had a white German shepherd, Sabre by name, who was the love of my life at the time and much more effectual than the policeman.

A call came in, mostly put to the back of my mind as I was busy at the time, but when a seedy, burnt young man appeared walking up my hill, the alarm bells rang. The story he gave, of being burnt when he took off his radiator cap, was vaguely believable. I did get a lot of rough-looking types turn up on my doorstep; the fettlers from Reid and the fishermen from Madura (a volatile mix, with alcohol, occasioning some extensive patch-ups), but this guy made me uneasy. I put him in the ‘hospital’ caravan and nervously attempted to chat. I took Sabre in with me as I started to peel some debris from the second-degree burns.

He smelt heavily of alcohol, but I offered him pain relief, which he (very suspiciously) refused. I must admit to disappointment as I was contemplating some heavy-duty sedation to make him amenable while I went inside and phoned the motel for help. I reiterated that it would hurt as it was obviously not a recent burn and was already infected; it needed to be cleaned. He refused to let me call the Flying Doctor and told me to get on with it. I tried not to ask too many probing questions, like where was his vehicle? I hoped the alcohol in his system would aid the pain relief and he would leave promptly.

Despite my caution, unsurprisingly he was agitated. He suddenly started screaming abuse at me and tried to grab me forcibly around the throat. At this, my Sabre leapt from the floor and launched his 54 kilos at his throat. Luckily for him he had his arm raised, and Sabre only ripped the arm and not his throat. My hero did sit on him though, holding the arm and snarling meaningfully, while I rather shakily said, ‘Good boy, hold!’ as though he was a trained attack dog and not my big, sooky mate!

I dashed across to the house to phone the motel where, needless to say, the policeman was unavailable. However, four fishermen were drinking in the bar. They came and rescued me, staying while I gave him a heavy dose of Largactil and rather ineptly sewed his arm up.

It turned out he really was a nasty piece of work who could have easily done me major damage or even killed me, if it hadn’t been for Sabre, my hero.

Julie Hogarth, registered nurse

When Julie Hogarth was physically attacked by a dangerous patient, her dog, Sabre, came to the rescue, tackling the man to the ground while Julie called for help.

Good Neighbours
YARAKA, CENTRAL WESTERN QUEENSLAND

I first met Janine Hawkes (‘Neen’ as she was known) in March 1994. She was the district nurse in the Yaraka area. I had moved up from a property near Quilpie to manage Mount Marlow. Neen and her husband John (known as Hawkes) owned a small property called Merrigal, adjoining Mount Marlow. Neen’s a born nurse and became a godsend to me over the next seven years, culminating in saving my life. Many were the times she stitched up my dogs and me after various station accidents.

My first experience of Neen’s expert nursing care was when I first arrived at Mount Marlow. I had stitches in my arm, which she removed for me. She always seemed to be stitching up my left hand: cuts from the slip of a knife when killing sheep and cattle for meat for the station. Occasionally she used to take charge of the Isisford Hospital, and after a few trips to Isisford to repair another cut, my wife bought me a mesh glove for that hand.

I was pumping up a truck tyre at Mount Marlow once, when the split rim flew off and hit me in the forehead. The result was another 35-kilometre trip to Merrigal for stitches. Another time I can remember lying on the lounge-room floor at Merrigal while Neen did another repair job, with one of her small daughters holding my hand and offering me heaps of comforting words!

I ran a chainsaw into my leg on another occasion; the list seems endless. Neen was always removing Mulga sticks from our legs, a consequence of mustering on motorbikes. If it wasn’t sticks, it’d be metal or some such thing from our eyes.

Many of my dogs were repaired by Neen on the floor at Merrigal. Two cases spring to mind. The first was when one of my dogs was racing down beside a weldmesh fence. There was one piece of weldmesh which had broken off one end, and was sticking out. The dog ran it up his hip, causing a long, deep cut, which Neen stitched up for me. The other time I was out on a bike running waters, not long after shearing. I noticed one woolly sheep running with all the freshly shorn ones. I cut him out of the mob and told the dog to go and catch it for me. He jumped off the bike, and strangely pulled up, sat down and looked at me. I said, ‘Go on, get hold of him.’ He caught the sheep but when I rode over to them I noticed there was blood just pouring out of his foot. On closer inspection I found that he had torn one of his claws and pad off his back foot. I still have no idea how it happened, and can only guess he may have caught it in the bike chain when he jumped off. Once again, Neen came to the rescue.

Then there came the day she saved my life, but that’s a story for another time.

As you can imagine, Janine Hawkes was a well-loved figure around Yaraka. Apart from being a first-rate nurse, she was a good friend to many, and a valuable contributor to community life in this very small outback town.

John Paul Tully, retired grazier, Queensland

Hungry the Horse
KIMBERLEY REGION, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

When you work in a remote community you end up being much more than just a nurse. This was certainly the case for me and my partner, when one day a newborn foal of a wild horse was brought into our clinic in the remote community of Oombulgurri. The foal had been left by its mother and could not stand or walk, so a couple of dingos were in the process of eating her. They had started on her rump.

We did not have high hopes for her as she could not even lift her head; she was dehydrated and in shock. But we did what we could and with out-of-date stock that we kept for animal emergencies we placed an intravenous cannula and started to rehydrate her. We also commenced antibiotics to prevent the dingo bites from becoming infected. Soon enough she perked up and we were able to start feeding her powdered milk, at first syringing the milk into her mouth until she was able to lift her head to drink out of the container.

During this first day we gave her regular pressure area care, turning her every couple of hours. By the end of the day we decided that she needed to be put into a standing position just for a minute. We carried her from the clinic to our nice grassy yard to give her something soft to fall on. Carefully we positioned her and supported her into a standing position with both of us holding her. She was very weak and unsteady; if either of us had let her go she would have toppled over. But foals are different from human babies and despite being totally unsteady, she stretched out a foot to take a step. We supported her to take a couple of steps and assisted her back to the ground.

We stayed up late that night to make sure she was okay and to give her the last antibiotic for the day. With such a sick animal, it was in the back of our minds that she may not make it through the night. We woke early to check on her; she was alive and she was hungry! She could suck down a container of milk quicker than a Yankauer sucker could. We continued her care as we had done the day before. We also attempted to keep her cool by placing her in the shade and wiping her down throughout the day. The days were on average 43 degrees and she appeared to be running extra hot due to the dingo bites, which were red, swollen and painful. After work we stood her up again; she was still unsteady and we thought she would have fallen if either of us had stopped supporting her, but she was having none of this. She took a few unsteady steps then started to run. She could run in a straight line okay, but turning and stopping were a problem. You could see the happiness in her face as ran and she gained confidence.

There was no stopping her now; she was mobile and she was hungry!

It didn’t take long to fall in love with Hungry. She was loving and cheeky, but she was not the best-looking horse we had ever seen; she had a wall-eye and a lumpy rump.

All horse owners would agree that horses are expensive to keep. Hungry was no exception. She would go through a large bag of ‘calf’ powdered milk a week. We had to get this flown into the community as this was the only way to get stores in. Luckily for us the local airways were very helpful and would bring them out for free if they had a plane coming out.

Hungry grew and grew and remained hungry, but she was not interested in eating grass like a regular horse, she only wanted milk and she had no problem letting us know!

After nine months of caring for Hungry we started looking for a suitable home for her. After many phone calls, we found a horse trainer who trained with love and not force. He also trained Indigenous children to care for horses and to ride. This seemed like a perfect fit for Hungry.

The next hurdle was to get Hungry to him. She couldn’t fly; the only option was to put her on a barge. It was the saddest day to see Hungry go, and to add to this she was scared and stressed. But the horse trainer was true to his word and stayed in the horse float with her the entire twenty-four-hour barge trip.

Hungry got to grow up in a happy, carefree environment with other horses. She was weaned off the milk and her name was changed to ‘Oombi’ to reflect where she came from. She was trained with love and is now a working horse near Alice Springs; she apparently loves to work and is miffed if she doesn’t get to go out.

So if you ever see a big, beautiful horse with a wall-eye, a lumpy rump and a cheeky personality, you are probably looking at Hungry. Say hi from me.

Shelley Munro, rural remote nurse practitioner, lecturer Charles Sturt University

Shelley Munro knows that remote area nurses don’t just treat humans. Hungry the horse was abandoned by her mother and set upon by dingos, then brought to Shelley’s clinic. She didn’t have high hopes for Hungry, but with careful medical attention the cheeky and loving foal was nursed back to full health.

Scaly Surprise
DERBY, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

I am a midwife and I work in a remote maternity unit. One day I had to go out in the ambulance to collect a pregnant lady who was apparently in labour. Unfortunately this woman was a heavy drinker and subsequently, a frequent caller of the ambulance. As per usual this woman was brought back to the maternity unit for assessment and sobering up.

While she was sitting up in the labour ward bed with the CTG (cardio-topography) monitor attached, she proceeded to tell me about the snake in her bag. It was about handover time, so the night duty midwife was also listening to the story. I said to the woman that I didn’t believe her, but in her drunken stupor she proceeded to assure us that there was indeed a snake in her bag. I asked her to show me and she agreed.

At this point my colleague quickly departed the room, saying that she was terrified of snakes. I lifted the woman’s bag, which was curiously rather heavy, onto the labour bed. I took a few steps back as she started to rummage around in her bag and mumble that she was intending to eat the snake for dinner.

To my shock and amusement the woman finally hauled out a massive black-headed python and dumped it on the bed between her legs. As I called my colleague back to see the sight before me, which you would only see in a remote setting, the patient and I both started to laugh.

My colleague returned but only made it as far as the labour ward door before screaming loudly and running away. Regretfully, I found my colleague very distressed in the nurse’s station, stating that she would not be able to take over from me until the snake was removed from the building.

Being pretty keen to go home myself, I went back into the labour ward and asked the woman to put her snake away. I then proceeded to put her bag outside, lock the door and shut the curtains. Despite all of this commotion the CTG continued to run smoothly even though it was a very flat ‘drunk’ trace.

I am pleased to say that my colleague has forgiven me and now when someone says they are scared of something I believe them.

By the way, the snake was dead.

Vanessa Page, registered nurse

A Snake is a Snake
AMPILATWATJA, NORTHERN TERRITORY

We’ve been doing this for about six years. We come from the Blue Mountains and Sydney. We were going to a Third World place, probably Africa, when the opportunity came up for us to go up and relieve for a couple of weeks at Ampilatwatja, near Utopia, north-east of Alice Springs.

It was such a great experience we joined an agency and went to Balgo in Western Australia for two years. I was the clinical coordinator for the Kutjunka area while Rhonda worked as RAN at the clinic.

I was walking along one day and Vikki was following me. I saw this thing on the ground and thought, That’s not a stick, and started walking backwards but when I ran into Vikki she started pushing me forward saying, ‘C’mon. Let’s go!’ I’m saying, ‘No, no,’ knowing I can’t tell her it’s a snake because she terrified of them. Finally she’s pushing so hard I say, ‘It’s a snake!’ By the time I turned around she was gone!

She’d taken off, but she’d actually gone and found a local boy who thought he might have scored an easy lunch. When they got back, he took one look and said, ‘No, I don’t want that. It’s a poisonous snake. It might bite me. I don’t want that.’ At the same time, I’m saying, ‘We just want to get rid of it . . .’ He was no help! He wandered off and the snake wriggled under our house. We went into the house and turned the airconditioner on freezing in the hope it would be too cold for it to come inside.

I got kind of used to snakes eventually. A couple of years later, we were working up at Borroloola. One day, we’d changed a tyre on our 4WD and we’d just finished when we decided we should give it a good clean; we hadn’t done it for months. Rhonda walked round to the back of the car and there was a king brown, right there! We let that one go, but I was a bit stunned to see it since we’d been kneeling on the ground changing the tyre a few minutes before.

Next day, we’d just come home for lunch break and Rhonda sat down on the lounge. I went over to the kitchen to wash up a couple of things in the sink. I lifted up the tea towel and there was a small snake lying under it. I stepped back and yelped, ‘Snake, snake!’

Rhonda watched the snake slither all over the bench while I rang Edna, an elderly white lady who works at the clinic, to get someone to help. She couldn’t find anyone else so she came herself. She said, ‘Have you got tongs, a hammer and a sharp knife?’

I’m like, ‘Right, okay, yeees.’ The tongs weren’t very strong but Edna’s got a hold of the head with the tongs while I hit it with the hammer. I said, ‘What do you want me to do with the knife?’ She said, ‘Cut its head off.’ So I’m there sawing away with knife. Off came the head. She picked it all up, took it outside and said, ‘Okay, see you back at the clinic.’

We think it was a death adder. We’ve got a photo of it.

Rhonda Smith and Vikki Robertson, registered nurses