It has been a busy week or two up here, mainly
with work, but also with more visitors. Last weekend my good friend Anna and
her new husband Brad came up to Darwin for the weekend, While I was very upset
I couldn’t spend more time with them it really cheered me up to see them. I
love visitors! I think after a month up here I am starting to get a little
homesick so familiar faces cheer me up no end (hint, hint people!)
We had a lovely Saturday night out at Fanny
Bar trailer boat club – cue in another fabulous sunset.
We then had dinner out at Cullen Bay. Ever
since I got here they’ve been showing ads for the greek restaurant down there
on TV. The guy who runs it walks around in ,what I can only assume is, a
traditional greek hat. Thankfully he was not wearing it last Saturday night. It
was quite busy when we got down there but after promising to find us a table
outside in a packed restaurant, he actually delivered. Within 10 minutes. I will have to try and get down there in the day cos
the boats in the bay look amazing – almost like Newie. Dinner was lovely, as were the
cocktails so I was quite impressed in general.
Fi and I also had a nice brunch on Sunday
in town. Despite picking out several good places to try we ended up at none of
them (apparently lots of cafes in Darwin are not open on weekends, WTF?). We
picked the one that had lots of cyclists – always a good sign – and the food
was nice. But not amazing. The search continues…
We were quite amused by the NT news
headline though…
Turns out that a rope holding a pic of KRudd and a pic of Julia was put out over a river and the psychic croc jumped up and ate Julia. Who would have thought the pyshic croc would have got it right? I’m busy thinking of other things we can get psychic croc to tell us.
The other exciting event last weekend was
my impetuous purchase of a new Nespresso machine. Which means I can now enjoy
coffee at home ALL THE TIME with no effort required. Sigh. Mr Blue is now my
best friend.
On Thursday I headed over to the Tiwi Islands
to do a Surgical clinic for one of the surgeons away at the moment. I was quite
excited by the trip – although the 6am wake-up call and the fight for a taxi to
the airport did not start the day off right!
The Tiwi Islands comprise of Melville
Island and Bathurst Island and lie about 80km north of Darwin in the Arafura
Sea. The two islands have a combined population of about 2500 people and Meville
Island is apparently Australia’s second largest island (after Tassie) while
Bathurst Island only ranks 5th on the list. 90% of the population of
the islands are indigenous. Most people live in Nguiu on Bathurst Island, which
has a population of about 1500 but there also communities of around 500 people
each on Melville Island.
The flight from Darwin to Nguiu runs 3
times a day and the plane seats either 6 or 16 people. Luckily I got the 16
seater plane (I’m not so good on super small planes) particularly cos we got
quite a lot of turbulence on the way over. Its only a half hour flight and unfortunately we had quite a bit of cloud
cover so I didn’t get any pics. But here is a promotional picture of Nguiu....and thats kind of exactly what it looks like.
Nguiu itself is only a few streets square
with the health centre right in the middle. The health centre is relatively
large with a ‘women’s side’ and ‘men’s side’. While I was there doing my clinic
there was also a dental clinic, a chronic health clinic, a psychiatry clinic
and a nurses clinic for wounds so things were quite busy. The centre gets people from around the town to volunteer as drivers and each day they go out to get
the patients that have appointments at the clinic. Lists of people who have
appointments the next day are put up at the local shop so everyone knows who's meant to go in.
The centre is staffed permanently by a
number of local nurses as well as a caucasian GP couple, Dr and Dr Bowman. The
Bowmans have been in town for almost 4 years and work hard. They were very
welcoming, showed me around and had me over for lunch as well. One of the other
people on the plane over with me was a young medical student from Wales. She
has come over to Australia for 4 weeks to do an elective and is spending all
that time in Nguiu. While I enjoyed my day there I did feel a little sorry for
her. She seemed very overwhelmed by the whole place and I think after 4 weeks
in that tiny community I would go a little bit mental!
My clinic was fairly uneventful. Out of the
20 scheduled patients, 14 tutned up – which is apparently a good turnout. I got
to meet quite a few of my patient Ali’s family. Ali is the sister-girl from
Nguiu in hospital after a car accident and I got to catch up with her aunt,
brother and father. I also met Crystal, the head sister-girl, who gave me a
copy of the DVD of the ABC documentary on the sister-girls. Rebecca, the OT at
work, and I have been trying to get a copy for about two weeks so I was very
excited by that.
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The waiting room at the clinic (well kinda) - its really just the view out the window at the pouring rain
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While 14 patients sounds like nothing I
found the day quite tiring and it was a bit of a rush to get everyone who
needed to go from the clinic to the plane on time. Fortunately by the time we
got to the airfield we discovered the 2pm flight hadn’t even left yet cos of
the intermittent rain so we had plenty of time. I am heading back to Nguiu in
another two weeks to help with a trauma course so I feel like an expert at the flight already. Theres also a Tiwi football game coming up which would be nice to head
over for…
Work has been otherwise very busy but we’ve
had some interesting cases in this last week. In general the vast majority of
our emergency work is made up with burns and lacerations – from car accidents,
or bike accidents, or fights….Chuck in an occasional appendix and that’s pretty
much what I’ve been doing every day for the last few weeks. Its amazing how
many people manage to get themselves burnt in Darwin!
A sad case this week however was a young
girl flown in via Gove after a box jellyfish bite. It sounds like she reacted
badly to the bite – arresting twice on the way in – but then made it in to our
theatre after an injury to her femoral artery. She’s going to have a tough road
back home.
She was followed into the theatre by the
guy bitten by a lioness. He’s apparently a gardener at the Crocodile park and
tried to pat the lioness. I can only imagine he had good reason to do so! While
he will keep his arm his tattoos are ruined – I suspect that will upset him
more than anything.
Last night Fiona and I ventured into town
to get some culture in our lives. With our planned fishing trip abandoned due
to too many other people working, we bought tickets to the Darwin Symphony
Orchestra. Tickets came with dinner at Hanaman, the best restaurant in town! It
still spins me out that I can drive into the centre of town at prime-time on a
Saturday night and get a park right outside exactly where I want to be. We had
a pre-set menu at Hanaman and things were busy but the food was really nice.
The concert was packed out and quite a nice
night. I think Fi and I did notice quite early that we had been spoiled by the
Sydney Symphony Orchestra in our expectations. The concert was a series of
music inspired by Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev, Music for
Shakespeare by Green and Symphonic Dances by Bernstein. My highlight was
the original piece written by one of the
cellists called Fourteen Lines. She had set 7 of shakespeares sonnets to music
and it was actually really lovely. The conductor was very personable and the
orchestra seems to have a variety of concerts throughout this year so I might
have to stop in and see them again.
