Jess Payne

“I first went to Ten­nant Creek as a stu­dent and when we were plan­ning on going remote again, I fig­ured that was a good start­ing point,” Jess says. ​“I knew some of the peo­ple there and had an idea of where I was going.

“[Work­ing rural­ly and remote­ly] was some­thing I’d always thought of doing, espe­cial­ly work­ing with Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander Peo­ples. I’m a Yuwaalaraay woman and I’m pas­sion­ate about Abo­rig­i­nal health and well­be­ing so

I always want­ed to work in com­mu­ni­ty, to achieve good out­comes. We look after our own.

“There’s always a bit of reser­va­tion, though – you’ve nev­er been some­where so remote. Being able to go some­where in a real­ly sup­port­ed role as a stu­dent takes away some of your anx­i­eties. The not know­ing, the uncer­tain­ty, is a poten­tial bar­ri­er. But I think once you take that leap, it’s amazing.

“There’s not any ulti­mate thing you can do to pre­pare your­self, but you can go in with a lit­tle more con­fi­dence in your practice.

“This pro­gram [coin­cid­ed with] my first real expe­ri­ence as a RN in a remote area. It was amaz­ing – even just hav­ing the sup­port of oth­er par­tic­i­pants and the edu­ca­tors to bounce things off; and know­ing you’re not alone in your feel­ings and every­one is going through the same things. Plus the REC and the MEC course were amaz­ing – as a refresh­er, but also as com­plete­ly new learn­ing, con­tex­tu­alised to work­ing in isolation.

“I’ve relo­cat­ed to Vic­to­ria [recent­ly] but I cer­tain­ly hope to get back to remote prac­tice when it’s right for me and my fam­i­ly. I want to devel­op my career, my lead­er­ship skills. I hope to inspire and empow­er oth­er Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander peo­ple to become involved in deci­sion-mak­ing and gov­er­nance in health organ­i­sa­tions, so we can con­tin­ue to decolonise atti­tudes and ser­vices to pro­vide Cul­tur­al­ly Safe and respon­sive care.”

Helen Car­man

“I’d done about eight years in the metro sys­tem in WA when COVID-19 arrived and result­ed in bor­der restric­tions,” says Helen.

“Nor­mal­ly, I was trav­el­ling, and felt I was explor­ing the world. I start­ed to get a bit burnt out, lost. I was in ICU, and there was some com­pas­sion fatigue.

“I took a sec­ond­ment, where I flew up to the Kim­ber­ley for four months. I knew I liked work­ing region­al­ly. But I’d nev­er lived four months some­where. I felt I was in a dif­fer­ent world.

“The patients were dif­fer­ent, the lifestyle dif­fer­ent. Work­ing away from Perth re-ignit­ed my pas­sion for nurs­ing. I start­ed think­ing, if I like this, maybe I’d want to go fur­ther remote.

“You gain auton­o­my; and even though you’ve got sup­port elec­tron­i­cal­ly, through tele­health and phone calls, you real­ly need to know what you’re doing.

“I was work­ing in a lit­tle two-nurse ED, one of the most iso­lat­ed I’d been in to that point. I don’t have a mid­wifery back­ground; in the city, you look after one speciality.

“A woman came in, in labour, and we end­ed up deliv­er­ing this baby and it went fine. But we were on our own, and I remem­ber think­ing – I need to know a bit more about every­thing, for when these sit­u­a­tions arise.

“I had seen the pro­gram online, and want­ed to do the Mater­ni­ty Emer­gency Care course, which was includ­ed. It all lined up – I thought, what a godsend.

“I’ve met some girls in the coun­try who have gone from the city to a real­ly small clin­ic and last­ed three or four days, then gone back.

“If you go remote on your own, inde­pen­dent­ly, it’s pret­ty hard­core. I wouldn’t per­son­al­ly want to do it… This path­way has been a lot more gentle.

“If CRANAplus could fit more peo­ple on the path­way, so many nurs­es would love to do it.

“[My rec­om­men­da­tion to fel­low nurs­es is] just go for it. Per­haps start off at a big­ger site, and work your way down small­er and small­er. Know you’ve got the back­ground sup­port, like the Bush Sup­port Line.

“You don’t hear of many peo­ple work­ing remote­ly, then you go remote – and there’s a whole sup­port net­work of nurs­es doing the same thing. When you’re feel­ing far from home, you don’t feel lonely.”

Michelle Appo

“I decid­ed in 2016 to be a reg­is­tered nurse,” Michelle says.

“When I was work­ing in the hos­pi­tal sys­tem it was very hard, as an Indige­nous nurse, to see the treat­ment of remote Indige­nous patients… You’re fight­ing insti­tu­tion­al racism.

“I thor­ough­ly believe that I can do more for my peo­ple out­side of the hos­pi­tal sys­tem, rather than in… In pri­ma­ry health care [work­ing for an Abo­rig­i­nal Med­ical Ser­vice], it goes with­out say­ing they will always come to us first, before they will go to a ter­tiary insti­tu­tion like a hospital.

“This pro­gram has been absolute­ly, essen­tial­ly impor­tant for me. I’m a third-year nurse now, and things are just start­ing to make sense, to click. Often you go down the wrong path and halfway through, you realise, this is the avenue I should’ve tak­en. Where­as this pro­gram, it takes you right there.

“It gives you the tools, the train­ing, and the advice to start remote­ly… It’s not hid­ing any­thing, so you go there with all the inform- ation and all the skills to do remote nursing.

“I’d like to start tri­alling remote. I still want to get that pri­ma­ry health care [expe­ri­ence for the next year or so]; it’s real­ly impor­tant to have that ground­ing first. Pri­ma­ry health care can change a person’s life forever.

“I’ve got a lot of nurs­ing friends, and my point to a lot of them is this: if you can talk to and treat an Indige­nous per­son like you would any oth­er per­son, any oth­er nation­al­i­ty; if you can hold their hand like you would any­one else, then you know you should be remote.

“I think this pro­gram is essen­tial. I’m an Indige­nous nurse, and I’ve learned so much – even a lot more about my own his­to­ry than I knew before. I hope [CRANAplus] gets fund­ing to con­tin­ue it.”

Jaimy West

“I hap­pened to have done my immu­ni­sa­tion cer­tifi­cate, pre-COVID,” Jaimy says, ​“and I want­ed to see what was out­side of Mait­land, New South Wales.

“So I joined an agency, and acci­den­tal­ly joined ​‘rur­al and remote’ instead of ​‘ter­tiary’. The next minute I’m in the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry in Ten­nant Creek, at the hos­pi­tal, run­ning [a COVID-19] immu­ni­sa­tion clinic.

“I’m con­fi­dent I could go any­where and work, but you need to be aware of your­self and your con­nec­tion to Coun­try. It’s one of those eerie things – as soon as I saw the red, brown, the heat, I knew I was where I need­ed to be.

“There was noth­ing about Ten­nant Creek I didn’t like. I knew then I want­ed to go and work in remote communities.

“In my spare time, I jumped on the CRANAplus web­site and called CRANAplus and asked how I could fur­ther my edu­ca­tion. That’s how I found out about this program.

“I think there’s so much pres­sure in ter­tiary now, peo­ple think they’ll go out to a com­mu­ni­ty and it will be eas­i­er. I think that’s where some peo­ple fail and so I think I’ve been extreme­ly for­tu­nate to have been accept­ed into the CRANAplus Pro­gram. I’ve been giv­en tools so that when I get back out there, I know what to expect.

“Through the pro­gram, we learned not just how we are going to look after the com­mu­ni­ty and the nurs­ing side of things; it brought home how to look after your­self, as well as cul­tur­al aware­ness and Cul­tur­al Safe­ty.
​“I also loved that I was able to stay home and keep my main job.

“My biggest piece of advice would be to join CRANAplus.”