S.TRUEMAN PhD THESIS 2016

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[In] very, very remote clinics that have one nurse … no police anywhere nearby… no ambulances and it might take a day for the RFDS to get in there and they’re [remote nurses] alone … [if] they know everybody in the community and there are plenty of community members that’ll help out and help contain them [mental health patients]. [T24, p. 7] As a nurse participant described the evacuation of an aggressive and violent mental health patient at night, situated in a two person primary healthcare centre, located 200 kilometres from the closest hospital: It depends who would have been available … We could have … taken him [mental health patient] with one nurse, and got one of the members of the community who was sober at the time to drive the car. [T3, p. 7] 7.5 The Non-Human Arena In the following section, the non-human arena is discussed. The non-human arena consists of three types of influences on remote nurses: historical, political and professional, and three types of resources: physical, social and abstract objects (see Figure 6.8). Within the resources group there is one important influence, namely geography. 7.5.1 Influences in the non-human arena The first group of influences consists of historical, political and professional factors. This study does not separate these three within this group. There are two reasons for presenting these ‘influences’ conjointly. First, the three are inextricably linked, and it would be artificial to attempt to examine and discuss each in isolation; it would distort or dilute their combined influence. Second, the study’s aim was to recognise, but not to focus