Axe in hand, Clare climbs up and over man­groves on the hunt for mud crabs, long­bums and man­grove worms that remind her of long umbil­i­cal cords and taste like oys­ters. She knows she would get lost in this tan­gle of roots if not for the group of women she has grown so close to, lead­ing the way. 

Just 12 months ago, Clare’s life looked very different. 

After 17 years in hos­pi­tals and pri­vate prac­tice, she has stepped into the world of remote health. 

“I thought it was time to take on anoth­er challenge.” 

Clare works as an endorsed mid­wife on Galiwin’ku, as well as facil­i­tat­ing CRANAplus’ Mater­ni­ty Emer­gency Care cours­es with her new remote perspective. 

“I just love break­ing down the fear,” she says. 

“Gen­er­al­ly, women have babies, and they do it quite well. If I can remove some fear from birth and women and babies, then I think it’s job done.” 

This con­fi­dence is essen­tial on an island with a sig­nif­i­cant caseload. 

“We’ve got quite a large preg­nant pop­u­la­tion here on the island,” Clare notes. 

“There are about 2,500 peo­ple in this com­mu­ni­ty. We have any­where between 20 and 40 preg­nant women at any one time.” 

Clare works FIFO back-to-back with anoth­er mid­wife, Cher­ryl, so the pair have been able to facil­i­tate con­ti­nu­ity of care for these women.

“Obvi­ous­ly the ben­e­fits of con­ti­nu­ity are well known, but I think in these remote com­mu­ni­ties it’s real­ly, real­ly impor­tant,” Clare emphasises. 

“It makes such a dif­fer­ence, because we’re just so invest­ed in these women that we’re look­ing after and we fol­low them up close­ly. They get to know us real­ly well and they’re com­fort­able and they con­tact us when they need us.” 

Beyond the clin­ic, the com­mu­ni­ty gen­er­ous­ly wel­come vis­i­tors into their lives, and their families.

“When you’re here for a lit­tle while, a local fam­i­ly will often adopt you,” Clare explains. 

“All of a sud­den, you’ve gone from being here by your­self to hav­ing sis­ters and broth­ers and grand­chil­dren and a fam­i­ly around you. You have a place in the community.” 

“It’s very dif­fer­ent to any­thing that I’ve been used to, but it’s so beau­ti­ful and it real­ly con­nects you.” 

Being a part of a fam­i­ly means being invit­ed into every­day life, like the women’s hunt­ing trips, where the food they gath­er plays an impor­tant role in sup­port­ing the health of preg­nant women and babies. 

“One of the big prob­lems out here is low iron or ane­mia because food inse­cu­ri­ty is a real thing here,” Clare explains. 

“We have women who are starv­ing. Access to good-qual­i­ty food is real­ly hard.” 

Clare and her col­league join up with pub­lic health to run edu­ca­tion ses­sions on this and oth­er risk fac­tors dur­ing pregnancy. 

“We’ll light a fire out on a beach some­where and take all the preg­nant women and babies and do edu­ca­tion­al talks about smok­ing in preg­nan­cy or healthy, iron-rich foods,” she says.

Clare works close­ly with an Abo­rig­i­nal Health Prac­ti­tion­er, who also hap­pens to be part of her adop­tive fam­i­ly. She’s learn­ing a lot from her about how to com­mu­ni­cate with­in community. 

“The women are just so beau­ti­ful and so open to learn­ing about the process, but it’s all about the envi­ron­ment in which you’re doing it,” Clare observes.

“Any­thing where we can get out and be in the com­mu­ni­ty is much more well-received.” 

Around a fire on a beach just like this is where Clare finds her­self after her days of hunt­ing. The men have been fish­ing, so the women join them here to make damper and cook up their findings. 

“It’s a real­ly spe­cial time,” Clare says. 

“It’s a priv­i­lege to go with them and learn from them.”