No two jour­neys to remote health are quite the same. Two main influ­ences guid­ed Lor­raine Woods down the bush track. 

It began with the inspir­ing sto­ries shared by her late men­tor Ray Wyeth, who she worked with at St Stephens Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal and lat­er Her­vey Bay Hos­pi­tal. Then a chance vehi­cle break­down in Weipa sealed the deal. 

“That hap­pened on a Cape trip last year,” Lor­raine says. ​“I had a friend work­ing at Aurukun, and she was here at [Weipa Inte­grat­ed Health Ser­vice] and was telling me about the project. I thought, I could do this.” 

The Project she’s refer­ring to is the recent­ly launched Palm Cock­a­too Mid­wifery Group Prac­tice, with­in the Weipa Mater­ni­ty Ser­vice, which fol­lows a women-cen­tred mid­wifery group prac­tice mod­el of care. After apply­ing in August 2021, Lor­raine com­menced in Octo­ber, and has since worked as a Clin­i­cal Mid­wife, Clin­i­cal Mid­wife Con­sul­tant, and with­in the apt­ly named MUM role – Mid­wifery Unit Manager. 

“We’re here as a Group Prac­tice so we can offer con­ti­nu­ity of care – see clients from the start, through their jour­ney, help them have their beau­ti­ful birth, and get a healthy neonate,” Lor­raine says. 

“It doesn’t mat­ter who you are. Every­one should have equi­ty. Every­one should be enti­tled to health­care. It’s about try­ing to allow the women in com­mu­ni­ties to expe­ri­ence the same out­comes that we do in big cities.

“By allow­ing our women, in com­mu­ni­ties, to have acces­si­ble care, we can pro­mote birth as a nat­ur­al and nor­mal thing and get healthy babies and healthy mums. They don’t have to travel.” 

Women from neigh­bour­ing com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing Mapoon and Napranum, are on the group practice’s cur­rent caseload.

The ser­vice is aim­ing to deliv­er in-depth care even fur­ther afield, such as in Lock­hart Riv­er and Coen, through tele­health, employ­ment of more mid­wives and Abo­rig­i­nal Health Work­ers, and oth­er solu­tions still under discussion. 

They cur­rent­ly fol­low an all-risk mod­el for ante­na­tal and post­na­tal, and a low-risk mod­el for birth. High­er risk women are trans­ferred to Cairns. 

“[Some­times] we’ve missed out on the birthing,” Lor­raine says, ​“which is okay, because birthing is only a small part. We’ve looked after them all their ante­na­tal care, for 36 weeks. They’ve gone to Cairns and come back when the baby is a week old. You’ve missed five weeks, but all that edu­ca­tion you offered… they’ve obvi­ous­ly lis­tened. Things are work­ing out.

“Our breast­feed­ing rates are real­ly high. To have a baby that is breast­feed­ing is so impor­tant. Our women have felt they’ve had enough edu­ca­tion that it’s work­ing for them. Hav­ing your lady answer the door breast­feed­ing their baby is just amazing.

” Lorraine’s ear­li­er com­mit­ments to pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment are now pay­ing div­i­dends, with her six-month Phar­ma­col­o­gy post-grad course lead­ing to her sta­tus as an Endorsed Midwife.

This AHPRA endorse­ment makes it pos­si­ble, with­in the bounds of leg­is­la­tion and health ser­vice accred­i­ta­tion process­es, to pre­scribe cer­tain med­i­cines, order bloods or ultra­sounds, and pro­vide asso­ci­at­ed ser­vices. Lor­raine views this as the mid­wifery equiv­a­lent of Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er endorse­ment and is hope­ful it will enable her to max­imise con­ti­nu­ity of care on the Cape.

On the ground, she’s learned a lot about work­ing cross-cul­tur­al­ly. She’s realised the impor­tance of rap­port, adapt­ed to that fact that part­ners may not always be present because of Women’s Busi­ness, and tak­en the advice of two First Nations mid­wives on the team.

Tak­en togeth­er, these achieve­ments earned Lor­raine the CRANAplus Ray Wyeth Ear­ly to Remote Prac­tice Award, which was pre­sent­ed at the 39^th CRANAplus Con­fer­ence in Adelaide.

“I was real­ly wrapped to be the recip­i­ent of the award, espe­cial­ly because Ray was part of my life and my jour­ney and my career.”

She extends a warm thank you to her col­leagues and is excit­ed about her future on the Cape, as she pre­pares for a sec­ond­ment to Thurs­day Island as Clin­i­cal Midwife.