“I’m not an aca­d­e­m­ic and have not earned my stripes through con­tribut­ing to ground-break­ing research. My pro­fes­sion­al career is not note­wor­thy, I have nev­er been a senior man­ag­er or in any posi­tion of influ­ence or impor­tance. But I have not been afraid to speak up or write or con­tribute to sub­mis­sions for change. I would say my approach is small real­is­tic bites.

“What I can say is that I turn up at the coal face every day — and have done so for over 40 years: work­ing along­side like-mind­ed peo­ple, always think­ing I can help, I can sup­port, so that togeth­er we can improve the lives of peo­ple in the Bush and the peo­ple who care for them.

“I see the inequal­i­ty that exists and it moti­vates me to want bet­ter for the Bush and I am lucky enough to have a part­ner along for the ride.”

For Sharon, who became a Fel­low in 2010, the things that are ​“bet­ter for the bush” revolve around the pro­vi­sion of high-qual­i­ty pri­ma­ry health care.

Sharon is an advo­cate for strength­en­ing the remote work­force both in health cen­tres and the com­mu­ni­ty and enabling the con­sumers who use the ser­vices. Over the years, this has involved recruit­ing and assist­ing with the train­ing of local health and com­mu­ni­ty work­ers and sup­port­ing com­mu­ni­ty groups such as strong women’s pro­grams, ear­ly inter­ven­tion pro­grams for chil­dren and aged care. She has been involved in train­ing and sup­port­ing remote area nurs­es so they not only sur­vive but enjoy the expe­ri­ence so they can give the best ser­vice they can. Encour­ag­ing the shift towards Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty-con­trolled Health organ­i­sa­tions (ACCHOs) has been an impor­tant priority.

“I have been nurs­ing for over 40 years now and only a hand­ful of those years have been in an urban set­ting – and that was while train­ing — so I guess you could say I love the Bush, the peo­ple, the land and the spir­it,” says Sharon.

Cur­rent­ly Sharon and her hus­band Phil, who trained as a Reg­is­tered Nurse while they were based in East Arn­hem, work togeth­er as the mobile remote team for Kather­ine West Health Board. They cov­er around 40,000 km a year, vis­it­ing cat­tle sta­tions and some small Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties with­out a clinic.

“I was already sold on the val­ue of pri­ma­ry health care so this job has been anoth­er great oppor­tu­ni­ty to prac­tise what we preach and to broad­en my scope of prac­tise in this area,” says Sharon. ​“When peo­ple live in such iso­lat­ed areas, its impor­tant for them to have reg­u­lar health checks but access is not so easy. So along we come, set­ting up under the shade of a tree, or in a spare room offer­ing proac­tive screen­ing and assis­tance with man­age­ment of chron­ic con­di­tions and pre-exist­ing con­di­tions. This job allows us to use every pri­ma­ry health care skill set across the lifes­pan. This includes my first love, child health, women’s and mater­nal health also sex­u­al health, men’s health, chron­ic dis­ease man­age­ment, tobac­co and alco­hol assess­ment and coun­selling; assess­ing nutri­tion and hydra­tion, immu­ni­sa­tion, skin spot checks and oth­er skin relat­ed prob­lem; psy­cho­log­i­cal and men­tal health sup­port, plus a bit of acute care as the need arises.

“All aspects of our work is impor­tant but I think mental/​emo­tion­al health sup­port is one of our main roles. Liv­ing remote can come with a unique set of stress­es for every­one. Dur­ing our well-per­son checks we pro­vide a human con­tact that is pri­vate, safe, an oppor­tu­ni­ty to get things spo­ken that may be wor­ry­ing them, and we sit around the din­ner table with staff and we nor­malise talk­ing about men­tal health ask­ing them ques­tions about how they are travelling.”

Sharon and Phil work close­ly with all mem­bers of the extend­ed Kather­ine West staff and vis­it­ing spe­cial­ist teams. ​“If needs are iden­ti­fied, you then have the capac­i­ty to phone a friend to get appro­pri­ate help from the net­work of health pro­fes­sion­als. Last year the COVID-19 restric­tions saw sta­tion peo­ple even more iso­lat­ed than usu­al and it was a busy and reward­ing year as we picked up many of the ser­vices that peo­ple would nor­mal­ly vis­it their GP for.”

Sharon has been present for a lot of change in remote health over the years. ​“The good and the bad,’ she says.

“Child sur­vival from acute ill­ness has improved. But dis­eases that are pre­ventable like rheumat­ic heart dis­ease, that should not still be there.

“I thought I knew poor, what poor peo­ple had to put up with, but to live with peo­ple who are liv­ing in absolute pover­ty with­out their basic human rights being met bring home the spi­ral of con­se­quences that comes with that. A big thing for me deal­ing with main­ly women in my ear­ly years in remote was the lev­el of fam­i­ly vio­lence and how nor­malised that was. It was both con­fronting and sad­den­ing. I gained a great respect for the women in Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties how they could car­ry on. Their spir­it always amazed me. 

“The inter­ven­tion broke my heart. How that was rolled out and the big spoon of dis­re­spect that came with it. But despite that set back I have seen some pos­i­tive changes, which should be our focus. Phil and I are both proud to work for an Indige­nous health board: they get the pri­or­i­ties right and there are less delays due to bureau­cra­cy. It’s great to work in an organ­i­sa­tion that places health pro­mo­tion and pre­ven­tive health mea­sures in such high esteem. 

There were lim­it­ed Indige­nous resources when Sharon start­ed work­ing in remote com­mu­ni­ties about 20 years ago, so she start­ed pro­duc­ing appro­pri­ate mate­ri­als. She recalls a Paul Hogan-style response from a group of Indige­nous women pre­sent­ed with a perky pair of pink breasts to talk about check­ing for breast lumps . ​“One woman lift­ed up her top,” says Sharon, ​“and said ​‘they’re not breasts, these are breasts’. Now, the ACCHOs ensure resources are approved by the local Indige­nous people.

“Work­ing in com­mu­ni­ties is a roller coast­er,” says Sharon. ​“You work with some of the most amaz­ing mix­ture of peo­ple and the oppor­tu­ni­ties are end­less in the most beau­ti­ful landscape. 

“I wish I could say I felt sup­port­ed as a remote area nurse but to be hon­est most of the time I did not. Over the years I saw some amaz­ing nurs­es who were com­mit­ted to doing a good job in often extreme cir­cum­stance leave remote burnt out and dam­aged. The turnover of staff in com­mu­ni­ties was high and there was lit­tle empa­thy for those that were deemed to be show­ing weak­ness. I had a con­ver­sa­tion with a man­ag­er once who said ​“remote nurs­es are dis­pos­able items — there’s always fresh fod­der look­ing for a remote adven­ture.” I hope it’s not like that now.” 

“What’s next for us?” Sharon mus­es. ​“Not quite ready for retire­ment. I am think­ing some sort of teach­ing, of health work­ers or nurs­es new to remote.

“Both of us absolute­ly believe that that is one of best ways to help remote com­mu­ni­ties and the peo­ple that live in them.”