Steeped in Features: All in a Nursing Day

Ann Donaldson

All in a Nursing Day

Reading was my passion, and winning a Red Cross competition at school set me on a path that would last throughout my life.  The book I won was about one of the first nursing posts established at Innamincka by Rev. John Flynn and his dream of helping people in the bush. Inspired by Elizabeth Burchill's story, highlighting the importance of saving lives and reducing isolation for the people of the bush. It grabbed my imagination.

My training commenced with history.  I learnt of Florence Nightingale, who demonstrated during the Crimean War that lives could be saved by hygienic primary health care. She felt so strongly about saving lives that she paid her way into the war arena. The British army accepted her work and devised a training program to expand her philosophies and address nursing shortages across the Commonwealth.

This four-year program, in theory, would offer ongoing full-capacity experienced staff across both urban and rural centres. At the commencement of the two-year country placement, the trainees completed a six-week introductory care course in a base hospital. I completed mine at Port Lincoln Hospital.

Nurse educator and Doctor training was to continue in the local hospital. My country nursing stalled right there as the local town Doctor refused to give lectures to any staff member. Finally, after nine months, Mum and I were encouraged to approach the Nurses Board.    

We discovered that funding was a bulk payment to the local country hospital and not transferable, which equated only to enrolled nurse status if one remained in this hospital with this local Doctor. I wanted to be a Registered Nurse.

I recommenced the transfer program closer to Adelaide, completed my full two-year country placement, and transferred to the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH), for specialisation in operating theatres, ear, nose, and throat, eyes, women’s and men’s health, infectious diseases, intensive care, and post-surgical care for the third and fourth years.

The RAH was the state centre for trauma at that time, and in emergencies, the country nurses were deemed to have more experience and called when shifts were short-staffed. During one particularly hectic night shift, I was summoned to the intensive care unit to assist.  All I saw were bodies on stretchers everywhere with breathing apparatus in situ. I had no experience in Intensive care at this level. The senior nurse was busy right alongside me using the sucker on her patient whilst I was standing at the head of my patient, taking observations and monitoring equipment.

My patient awoke and started pulling at his gear. She said, ‘Keep talking to him. I’ll be there in a minute.’

His eyes never left my face as I chatted, explaining that there was an accident. ‘Did he remember anything?’ A slight shake of the head, the eyes glued to my face as I talked him through all the tubes hanging off him, and maybe the discomfort of the intubation tube helping him breathe. The best news was that he was waking up. My fear lessened as I talked.

Why did this patient wake when I approached him? Was it just coincidental?

I never forgot that transition from ‘unconsciousness’ to ‘fully awake,’ processing everything around him in this strange environment, and the total trust he placed in me.

Now, here was the Royal Flying Doctor Service, another arm of Reverend John Flynn’s vision, bringing practical help to the bush and supported the Bush Church Aid nursing outposts with faster medical assistance through the Flying Doctor services to people across the Outback.  

The Royal Flying Doctor Service was seeking the right person to join their team as a flight nurse.  I loved flying. Dad had a plane. I had spent many hours in the air in small and large aeroplanes and jets. I had circumnavigated the globe, and I didn’t get airsick. I was a Registered Nurse and Midwife with work experience. I reckoned I might qualify.

I applied and within two weeks I was ringing home. ‘Mum, what a bonus RFDS will pay me to fly!’  Mum was ecstatic for me.

Fifty years after Reverend John Flynn’s dream in South Australia, various bush church aids still managed the Registered Nurses stationed at Oodnadatta, Marree, Tarcoola, Cook, Coober Pedy, and Yalata, with the nearest doctors being available in Port Augusta RFDS, Alice Springs, or Ceduna.

One RFDS doctor I worked with, Dr Kamitakahara, moved to Coober Pedy in 1978 just for six months to learn how to polish stones.  He stayed in his medical practice for fifty years, polishing his opal. He was recognised for setting up an efficient retrieval system to retrieve those who fell down a mine shaft.

I worked as a First Aid officer on a Mine, in Maternity, and as a Community Health Nurse for many years, including leading a team of forty-eight professionals through change management and as a Workforce Development Officer. With these skills, I was then invited to help create the Community Care Information Systems Database for the Federal Government.

And that is how the bush draws you into the freedom and opportunities to be who you want to be.

Thankyou.