COVID had robbed me of the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do an inter­na­tion­al prac place­ment, and inter-region­al bor­ders had closed the week before my pre­vi­ous region­al place­ment in Carnar­von was due to start. So I was keen to explore and see what work­ing in a remote loca­tion would be like. 

In Octo­ber last year, I found myself in Esper­ance, an eight-hour dri­ve from Perth and four hours to Kal­go­or­lie. With­out mean­ing to sound like a pro­mo­tion­al cheer­leader, Esper­ance is a gem. It is remote, but with all the crea­ture com­forts such as cafes with good cof­fee, a brew­ery serv­ing craft beers and wood-fired piz­za, a thriv­ing arts and live music scene, and a diverse com­mu­ni­ty with as many design­er prams as inde­pen­dent 85-year-olds on gophers rolling down the main street. 

The sun ris­es and sets over beau­ti­ful beach­es of every descrip­tion: wild, rugged, con­sis­tent surf and lagoons with the bluest of aqua greens. It is a camp­ing, fish­ing, hik­ing, island-hop­ping and 4WD heav­en. The weath­er dur­ing our stay in late spring was real­ly four sea­sons in one day, alter­nat­ing between wind and rain that felt like it was straight from the Antarc­tic, to winds straight from the cen­tral Aus­tralian desert, dis­persed with blue, sun­ny, beach per­fect days. 

Ser­vic­ing a rur­al, agri­cul­tur­al, min­ing, fish­ing, tourism and port town, the hos­pi­tal emer­gency depart­ment was much busier than I antic­i­pat­ed. Dur­ing the first weeks, I was like an emu in the head­lights as I got my head around the unpre­dictable rhythm of an emer­gency depart­ment (ED). I watched the ED staff man­age the usu­al mix of chest pain and elder­ly ​“not- feel­ing-quite-right” jug­gled with chil­dren with bro­ken limbs and tod­dlers with bronchiolitis. 

There were dai­ly reminders that we were no longer in urban areas with a few snake and tick bites, mul­ti­ple bee stings to faces, and farm­ers with tea tow­els around their hands need­ing sutures and a tetanus injection. 

Dis­persed through nor­mal days, the high­ly skilled team step up into trau­ma mode, with car acci­dents, pneu­moth­o­rax from work­ers falling off silos, epilep­sy and ana­phy­lax­is requir­ing intu­ba­tion, through to drug and alco­hol fuelled injuries requir­ing Roy­al Fly­ing Doc­tor Ser­vice flights. I enjoyed the vari­ety that I would not have expe­ri­enced in an urban ED. It also pro­vid­ed me with oppor­tu­ni­ties to get the low-down from oth­er nurs­es who have worked remote­ly – mak­ing me hun­gry for more adventures. 

What real­ly impressed me was the team­work when all hands on deck were required. 

The vol­un­teer ambos, on-call doc­tors, radi­ol­o­gists and pathol­o­gists who came in after hours, often for the umpteenth time that week, with tired­ness but a sense of ser­vice to the community.

Thank you Esper­ance hos­pi­tal staff and CRANAplus for giv­ing me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to step away from the rou­tines of the city and immerse myself in the Esper­ance lifestyle. It didn’t take long to be recog­nised down at the shops and the pub and feel a lit­tle bit like a local. It’s a funky lit­tle town a long way from any­where and has set the tone for my career – I’m smit­ten and I will be back.