In 2014, Viv retired from her job at the Dingee Bush Nurs­ing Cen­tre in Vic­to­ria after 36 years of service.

“I last­ed six months,” she says. ​“My hus­band Azz­ie and I were back in Tiboobur­ra and there was a job going, so I applied and got it in Decem­ber 2014.”

They’d met in 1976 in Tiboobur­ra, a town 350 kilo­me­tres north of Bro­ken Hill, just south of the NSW/​Queensland bor­der. Viv was nurs­ing and Azz­ie work­ing as a sta­tion hand.

His father had migrat­ed from Pun­jab and estab­lished him­self as one of Australia’s pio­neer­ing Afghan cameleers in Bro­ken Hill dur­ing the late 1800s.

The couple’s return was like a homecoming.

“Every­body knew us,” Viv said. ​“I didn’t have to prove myself… I prac­ti­cal­ly knew every­body here, even if we were all a lit­tle short­er, old­er, balder, and grey-haired. Every­body embraced us.”

Azz­ie passed away in 2018 but Viv has stayed on in Tibooburra. 

“The red dirt’s under my skin. I don’t think I could go any­where else.”

Far West LHD’s Nurse of the Year

Around three or four first-year grad­u­ates under-take place­ment at Tiboobur­ra annu­al­ly. Viv isn’t sure which of them nom­i­nat­ed her for the NSW Far West Local Health Dis­trict Award for Nurse of the Year, which she received in May 2022.

“In your nurs­ing career, if you’ve helped some­one – even one per­son – over­come adver­si­ty, you’ve suc­ceed­ed, and can accept a pat on the back,” Viv says.

“I think I’ve done that and made a dif­fer­ence to people’s lives.”

She’s most proud of ​“the fact I’ve last­ed this long… Hon­est, I’ve nev­er wok­en up and thought I don’t want to go to work today. It’s always been a privilege.”

Rather than focus on her­self, Viv is eager to dis­cuss the future of the remote nurs­ing profession.

“It’s a real hon­our to be able to pass onto [the grads] how to live out in a remote area, how to sur­vive,” she says.

“They come out here, all alone… They don’t have to rein­vent them­selves, but they do have to think about who they are and where they are.

“I just hope they remem­ber – and obvi­ous­ly some of them do – and when I am in a [nurs­ing] home they’ll remem­ber me and bring me chocolate!”

The award can also be seen as an acknowl­edg­ment of com­mit­ment of the Fazul­la fam­i­ly to health care in the Far West Local Health Dis­trict, which is built around Bro­ken Hill Base Hospital.

Azzie’s great nephew’s wife, Avril Fazul­la, her­self took out the New to Prac­tice Nurse/​Midwife of the Year Award in 2022.

“The Sham­ros­es and Browns and Burns at the [Bro­ken Hill] hos­pi­tal – many relate back to the Fazul­las,” Viv says.

“I think there’s prob­a­bly about 20 peo­ple at the hos­pi­tal that come from Azzie’s family.”

Knowns and unknowns in pri­ma­ry health care

“It’s a hard life out here, for the peo­ple on the sta­tions, and you can see the dif­fer­ence you make,” Viv says. ​“You can see the ini­tial wound and work your way right through the dress­ing and recov­ery. You can see how what you do ini­tial­ly impacts on the outcome.

“My ethos is, you get three options if you come to me for advice or assis­tance,” Viv says.

“You do as I say – in con­sul­ta­tion with you; you take on board and go away and think about it; or you decline my offer – but know­ing full well you can come back again, and we’ll restart the process. I nev­er say no.

“I try to assist you to take own­er­ship of your own health out­comes, whether for your­self or fam­i­ly or friends.”

Viv has mas­tered these endur­ing prin­ci­ples, but she has also had to adapt to oth­ers that have evolved over time. It’s eas­i­er now to trans­fer ECG results to Bro­ken Hill, to obtain blood results local­ly with i‑STAT, and to be guid­ed by doc­tors watch­ing through a cam­era in the ED ceil­ing dur­ing emergencies.

She no longer needs to book in a time to call to her out-of-town rel­a­tives (in 1976, her time used to be two o’clock on Sundays).

“I remem­ber when I first start­ed my train­ing, you weren’t even allowed to touch a stetho­scope unless a doc­tor dropped it on the floor,” Viv says. ​“Now there are process­es, through edu­ca­tion and sup­port, I can [fol­low] in emer­gen­cies. It’s amazing.

“I’m not a mid­wife and in the last cou­ple of years I’d had a cou­ple of ladies go into ear­ly labour. That’s been heart-wrench­ing for me, not the moth­er! But I just calmed myself down… I have done work through CRANA edu­ca­tion pro­grams for what to do in emer­gen­cies. I’m quite hap­py with that.”

Nurs­es have been empow­ered by tech­nol­o­gy, but Viv also believes a nurse’s intu­ition con­tin­ues to play a vital role in mod­ern care.

“You’ve got to be aware of your­self and your own gut feel­ing,” she says. ​“That sense of ​‘there’s some­thing not right here’ – you’ve always got to believe in it.

Thank you, Tibooburra!

“I thank my fam­i­ly for putting up with my career path,” Viv says in con­clu­sion. ​“With­out their sup­port, I wouldn’t be here hav­ing fun in the desert.

“Thanks also to NSW Health and the Far West LHD for their sup­port, my co-work­ers here at Tiboobur­ra, and the Tiboobur­ra com­mu­ni­ty. I’m real­ly blessed by our sup­port­ive community.

“Remote Area Nurs­ing is the best job! And by the way, my posi­tion is not avail­able to any­one else for some time yet.”

Life and work in Tibooburra 

Dur­ing our con­ver­sa­tion in May, Tiboobur­ra had already exceed­ed its aver­age annu­al rain­fall. The lush salt­bush and scrub add a splash of green to the red dirt and big blue skies – ​“the mag­ic stuff that keeps you liv­ing out here,” Viv calls it.

The road from Bro­ken Hill to Tiboobur­ra has recent­ly been sealed. Any flood­ing of the creeks is now less like­ly to wash away the road or turn it to mud, mak­ing it eas­i­er for health ser­vices and tourists to access Tibooburra.

“One day we had a guy come into the health ser­vice, bad­ly injured,” 

Viv recalls. ​“The major­i­ty of our ED pre­sen­ta­tions are motor­bike riders.

“My ques­tion was – what are you rid­ing? He told me. Oh yeah, I said, you shouldn’t ride that mod­el out here! Oh, and what do you do? I asked.

“I’m a deal­er for these motor­bikes, he said. I own a dealership. 

“I asked: what have you learned in the last cou­ple of hours? 

“Lots, he said. There’ll be a let­ter going back to head office!”

Whether by bike, plane or car, there’s ample incen­tive to head to Tiboobur­ra, for the love of the desert, hope of encoun­ter­ing native flo­ra and fau­na (includ­ing rein­tro­duced bil­bies), or to explore the new Sturt’s Steps Muse­um which doc­u­ments Afghan Cameleer history.