From its base on Elcho Island in Galiwin’ku in the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry, the mobile Marthakal Home­lands Health Ser­vice pro­vides care to the Yol­ngu Peo­ple over an area of 15,000 km².

Among the com­mu­ni­ty, behind the wheel of a 4WD, or in a plane trav­el­ling to the dis­tant cor­ners of the Home­lands, you are like­ly to find Geof­frey Ganam­barr, who has been an Abo­rig­i­nal Health Prac­ti­tion­er for over 11 years.

Geof­frey is mul­ti­lin­gual in tra­di­tion­al Yol­ngu Matha lan­guages and acts as a first point of con­tact for Yol­ngu Peo­ple seek­ing health support.

“It was hard in the first place, but it’s easy now,” Geof­frey explains of his career so far. ​“A lot of expe­ri­ence now.

​“I came here when I mar­ried my wife. She’s from here. I came from Milingim­bi [Island]. I was here for long years when I was young.”

The work is demand­ing at the best of times, but the pan­dem­ic has increased the difficulty.

As we talk on the phone in Jan­u­ary, Galiwin’ku has just gone into a sev­en-day lock­down due to COVID-19 cas­es in the region. Health ser­vices are tem­porar­i­ly lim­it­ed to med­ica­tions and emer­gency.

​“We are locked down at the moment and will be opened next week,” Geof­frey con­tin­ues. ​“Peo­ple are fright­ened. We didn’t have this virus before.

​“It’s not hap­pened here before. It just comes and goes. Peo­ple can’t go back to Dar­win for a week­end.”

For­tu­nate­ly, Geof­frey and the team did every-thing they could to lim­it the risk before­hand.

​“We had some peo­ple come in from Dar­win and they explained to the peo­ple about this COVID-19,” Geof­frey says, remem­ber­ing back to a few weeks ago. ​“Then they under­stand, and they came into the clin­ic and asked for a vaccination.

“Dur­ing COVID vac­ci­na­tions I worked in the clin­ic, help­ing them last week. When the peo­ple come through, they see me first. I take tem­per­a­tures and then they go off and see the nurse for a vaccination.”

This year’s wet sea­son has added to the com­plex­i­ty: ​“Wet sea­son, like biggest rain. We can’t go and fly to the Home­lands, the main­land. We stay in the one place. We dri­ve alright, here. Vis­it Home­lands around here.”

As Geof­frey points out, there are many ben­e­fits for nurs­es if they decide to work for the Marthakal Home­lands Health Ser­vice. Togeth­er, Nurs­es and Abo­rig­i­nal Health Prac­ti­tion­ers can achieve great things.

“It’s a good oppor­tu­ni­ty for them to come here, and get more expe­ri­ence, get expe­ri­ence from us,” he says.

“When the vis­it­ing nurse can’t under­stand, we explain to them. We speak Yol­ngu Matha, and we explain to them.

“We fol­low a recall sys­tem. Then we know who the peo­ple are and take the nurse to those people.”

Health Man­ag­er at Marthakal, Jan­nie Kraayen­hof, says that by employ­ing Abo­rig­i­nal Health Prac­ti­tion­ers like Geof­frey, the ser­vice empow­ers nurs­es to do what they do best.

“Hav­ing a local per­son who is the first port of call – for me that is an impor­tant stan­dard to set in all Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ties,” she says.

​“They speak the lan­guage, it’s their cul­ture, their peo­ple – if anyone’s going to under­stand each oth­er, it’s going to be these mob.”

If you are inter­est­ed in work­ing for Marthakal Home­lands Health Ser­vice as an AHP, a nurse, or a GP, you can email Jan­nie at health.​manager@​marthakal.​org.