My Rural Story

I went there I was so excited. It was the first placement I was doing in a real rural Indigenous community and I was excited to see all the different health challenges that they face and the way that I was able to make a difference. However, when I got there I had a real, ‘oh my goodness, am I still in Australia?’ moment. It was like I’d landed in a third world country, it was just heart wrenching. It was so sad to see people who are Australians not having access to health care, not having the types of services that urban Australians have, and just being so far out of the way. So, yes it was a two hour flight away but there were hardly any fruits and vegetables on the island. The ability to have a nice house on the island, the ability to have clothes and shoes that were appropriate for the weather, all of those things were just lacking.

It really opened up my eyes to, oh yes, we really do have a gap and we have this Close the Gap campaign and it’s there for a reason, but we really need to be working on it a lot more than what we are. We can keep saying that we’re working to close the gap, but we really do need to be working to Close the Gap because it’s just not happening at the moment. So that was a real moment for me and I think that is, again, the reason I want to go rural because, not only do lots of Indigenous populations and communities not have access to health services, there’s also lots of farming and mining communities that also don’t have access. So, it goes across the board that we need more doctors off the east coast of Australia to go west and if I can be just one of those GPs that does that, then at least I’ll have made some difference.

@ElsevierAUS