Lyn’s achieve­ments as a remote health pro­fes­sion­al are shared between clin­i­cal care and governance.

With a stetho­scope in one hand and a strat­e­gy doc­u­ment in the oth­er, Lyn works as a Clin­i­cal Nurse Con­sul­tant for Nganam­pa Health Coun­cil as a ros­tered clin­i­cian, edu­ca­tor, and qual­i­ty improve­ment con­sul­tant across six clinics. 

On top of this role, she facil­i­tates CRANAplus cours­es and was a long­stand­ing CRANAplus Board Mem­ber pri­or her deci­sion not to stand for re-elec­tion in October.

She rep­re­sent­ed CRANAplus on the Nation­al COVID-19 Clin­i­cal Evi­dence Task­force and chairs the Edi­to­r­i­al Com­mit­tee for the Remote Pri­ma­ry Health Care Manuals.

“Those man­u­als are embed­ded in both gov­ern­ment and Abo­rig­i­nal Com­mu­ni­ty Con­trolled Health Ser­vices,” Lyn says. 

“Their con­tent is trans­lat­ed to health sys­tems and embed­ded in them. They’re used as a ref­er­ence point when look­ing at cas­es and deter­min­ing the approach, and used as teach­ing man­u­als – even over­seas. I’m real­ly proud to have been able to contribute.”

Life­long development

An endorsed nurse prac­ti­tion­er, Lyn’s com­mit­ment to improv­ing the struc­tures sup­port­ing remote health is fuelled by a wealth of hands-on expe­ri­ence, which she’s still accumulating. 

She recalls the val­ue of work­ing in the adult and pae­di­atric wards of Alice Springs hos­pi­tal pri­or to head­ing to Dock­er Riv­er in 2001. ​“It gave me a chance to under­stand the pop­u­la­tion catch­ment area,” she says. 

“I could work out ways to com­mu­ni­cate with peo­ple who didn’t have Eng­lish as a first lan­guage, gain cul­tur­al aware­ness, and talk to peo­ple about local matters.

“I could see the con­di­tions that were being admit­ted – and it was so valu­able to have done pae­di­atric work. When you work remote, you have to expect at least a third of the pop­u­la­tion is going to be under 25 years old.” 

As she head­ed fur­ther out, Lyn found her­self work­ing in con­di­tions con­ducive to per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al growth. 

“Remote area care is the most col­lab­o­ra­tive work you can pos­si­bly do, and you can learn so much from your col­leagues,” she says. 

“When we didn’t have as much equip­ment, and were using things like radio, it was hard­er to talk to some­one and run things past them. Now, it’s about col­lab­o­ra­tive care. It’s eas­i­er [than ever] to con­tact a col­league, spe­cial­ist, doc­tor, or anoth­er nurse.

“In some ways you’re going to be scru­ti­nised a lot more when remote. Often there’s anoth­er nurse or med­ical stu­dent with you to learn some­thing, and often there’s fam­i­ly members. 

“All of that means you can learn and do so much more than you can in oth­er conditions.”

Mem­o­rable moments

Reflect­ing on career moments that have stuck with her, Lyn remem­bers the ear­ly days when babies were born in the bush, and she was the only health pro­fes­sion­al present. 

“My hus­band would be in the clin­ic too as he had to warm up the blan­kets to be ready for the new baby,” she says. 

“And the grand­moth­er would be there, and my heart would be in my mouth, and I’d be pray­ing, because there was no way of evac­u­at­ing them. Where I was there was no night airstrip.

“I had three [babies] a year for a num­ber of years, born out there… I wasn’t plan­ning that, but some of [the mums] were! 

“When every­thing went well, and they stayed in the clin­ic… After, they’d go home to their place, and I’d go have a sleep. I’d see them in the after­noon and make sure all was well. That was real­ly affirm­ing, to see that.

“This oth­er lady used to come in for a spe­cif­ic nee­dle once a month,” Lyn continues. 

“I weighed her, and she’d lost a lot of weight… I looked at the notes. She’d been steadi­ly los­ing weight for months. 

“I asked her, are you walk­ing? – because she used to walk. She said ​‘no, no, I’m not walk­ing, I don’t feel very well. I can’t feel like walk­ing.’ I had a clos­er look. 

“When I made her lie on the bed, so I could see her tum­my, it wasn’t a mat­ter of feel­ing this unusu­al lump, I could see it stick­ing out. I’m hav­ing a melt­down inside – think­ing, she’s going to go, and I’ll nev­er see her again.

“I brought her sis­ter in and said, ​‘I think you need to go to Alice Spring for investigation’.” 

Six weeks lat­er, the lady reap­peared back in com­mu­ni­ty and came in to see Lyn. 

“I said ​‘What you are doing? Are you alright?’” Lyn recounts, still a lit­tle dis­be­liev­ing of the trans­for­ma­tion­al impact of her health check. The lady’s vis­it to a major hos­pi­tal had enabled the com­plete sur­gi­cal removal of her can­cer. ​“She said, ​‘They took that rub­bish out, sis­ter. I feel bet­ter!’,” Lyn says.

Embed­ding cul­ture in care

Lyn’s believes RANs should aim to respect cul­ture rather than enforce a strict­ly bio­med­ical per­spec­tive, because trust is key to improv­ing health out­comes. She recalls the days pri­or to Pur­ple House, when com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers had to receive dial­y­sis in Alice Springs. 

“They’d go to Alice Springs and quite often get lone­ly, and come back to com­mu­ni­ty,” Lyn says. ​“I used to say, ​‘you come and tell me if you are in com­mu­ni­ty.’ … Peo­ple would leave dial­y­sis, but at least they would come and tell me. Then we could work out a plan. 

“There was one lady that left dial­y­sis; there was a real­ly impor­tant funer­al. I said, ​‘Right, how can we work this out to give you a cou­ple of days?’” 

Lyn talked to the dial­y­sis unit and worked togeth­er with the client to take mea­sures to keep her healthy until the funer­al in three days’ time, using resources avail­able local­ly. Despite their best efforts, the lady’s health dete­ri­o­rat­ed with­out dialysis. 

“The way funer­als worked in that com­mu­ni­ty… The body was in Alice Springs, and the char­ter plane would bring it out on the morn­ing of the funer­al,” Lyn says. 

“This poor lady got so unwell that she said she has to go back to town… We were on the airstrip wait­ing for RFDS, when the char­ter plane came in with the coffin.

“She just couldn’t wait any longer… so she went in on the plane and had a good out­come. But I felt so sor­ry for her because she got so close. We were all cross­ing our fin­gers and hop­ing she’d get to the funer­al. It just didn’t quite work out. But she was grate­ful that we tried.” 

It’s a sad sto­ry – Lyn has many hap­pi­er sto­ries to tell – but it does reflect the impor­tance of local care, the poten­tial impact of health inequity on cul­tur­al prac­tices, and the need for health prac­ti­tion­ers to fac­tor in the cul­tur­al needs of clients.

One of many

Despite her achieve­ments, Lyn remains hum­ble, and far from complacent.

“I was walk­ing around Alice Springs hos­pi­tal once with a col­league, look­ing for a patient,” she says in an illus­tra­tive anecdote. 

“My col­league says, ​‘Oh good­ness, it’s like walk­ing around with the Queen. Every­one is wav­ing and say­ing hel­lo to you.’ 

“I said, I don’t know if that’s a good thing. There are too many peo­ple in hos­pi­tal that I know. 

“It was real­ly nice to be acknowl­edged [with the Auro­ra Award], but a lot of peo­ple do an awful lot of work out remote,” Lyn says in closing. 

“We all con­tribute, in all sorts of ways.”