Tuesday, 5 August 2014
Q&A
Q&A was live from the Garma Festival last night. It was a great programme with honest and robust discussion, and was hopeful and inspring. Great! Watch it if you can. Here's the link
Monday, 4 August 2014
Stop.Think.Respect
From the beyondblue website:
"Stop. Think. Respect.
beyondblue's new national anti-discrimination campaign highlights the impact of racism on the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Research shows that subtle or 'casual' racism can be just as harmful as more overt forms. Imagine being judged in a job interview by the colour of your skin, rather than the strength of your CV. How would you feel if you were watched in a shop or treated differently on public transport?
Why should anyone be made to feel like crap, just for being who they are?
Stop. Think. Respect. encourages everyone in Australia to check their behaviour. Stop the discrimination, think about how your comments or actions could cause real distress and harm, and respect people who are different from you."
The video is worth watching: it made me think.
Suspicion, mistrust, fear of difference, insecurity, uncertainty... Many things contribute to racism. It's ugly. And can be subtle.. we all need to stop, think, and respect.
I've really enjoyed going for walks in the late afternoon. It's great to get out into the community and surrounding bush. I've realised that I'm very suspicious and untrusting of the dogs! There are lots of stories and cautions to take a stick, or pick up a rock. Mostly, they're fine, and I've met some friendly ones.
It was good to go to church yesterday. It was a low key event. The bell rang early: I went along over an hour later, and was in plenty of time. Some singing to start, then the service leader talked about what she'd experienced the day before had helped her as a person. The clay she was working with became a picture for her in her faith journey, and she talked about it naturally and with humour, in both her language (Yolngu Matha) and in English. Then the lay pastor spoke. I didn't understand what he was saying, but it was good to see him there. He's the father of the woman in her 40's, the one we sent to Darwin, who died in ICU.
I find people here to be gracious, friendly and open - whether in the clinic, at church, or out and about.
Saturday, 2 August 2014
Follow up
One of the hard things about working in this context is follow up. It seems really hard to finish things - to see a medical problem reach a suitable conclusion. The medical records software has recalls. Doctors add recalls to follow up abnormal results. Then there are all the check up recalls for chronic conditions and general heatlh checks. And immunisation recalls. All these recalls - lists are generated for follow up. But the lists are overwhelming! It's hard to prioritise. Often follow up is very ad hoc, and depends on people coming in for something else. Or, drivers go out into the community with a list, and try to find people and ask them to come to the clinic. Sometimes they come, sometimes they don't.
As clinic staff, our priority is health and follow up, wanting to do good medicine for people. But for the people here, coming to the clinic is just one of many priorities, and sometimes it's just not important enough to come. This is hard for us to understand! But we need to learn how to work with the community more effectively, and part of that is understanding all the issues.
The clinic staff also have to deal with many priorities. Often there will be visitors from outside, who come to get us revved up in their field, and do a better job at it. On Wednesday it was STI's. No one would deny that testing and treatment is really, really important. But for the people who came to talk about it, that's all they do. The clinic has to do everything... (Actually it was a really good visit, and part of it was that a male Aboriginal Health Practitioner from Nhulunbuy came, and worked with Jeremy (doctor) and others, to run a sex education afternoon for boys)
The chronic disease nurse is just back from holidays. She said she used to work till 7pm most days, checking the follow up lists, working on things. But she nearly burnt out, and has decided that she can only do so much, and she needs to look after herself better. It's the work-life balance.
Speaking of which - it's a long weekend again this weekend. Monday is NT Picnic Day. So that gives me 3 mornings for extended bird watching, 3 afternoons for longer walks, with plenty of time in between to read, rest, just watch the sea, do housework etc. Lovely! The birds were elusive this morning, till I stepped off the track and went towards some bird song. Then I saw quite a few! Perhaps there's a picture there: be willing to leave the comfort zone.. probably stretching it too much. Actually I was happy just standing in the bush (on the path) and listening. This afternoon I had a lovely walk, a new route. Jeremy had told me about it. It's the sea end of the wetlands.
I love watching the sea. It's changing all the time. Yesterday , having breakfast , I saw a strange log floating a good way out. It really looked like a crocodile - and it was! I could see the morning sun shine on the plates of its tail. Sometimes only its head was showing. I did take a few photos - will post one next week when I can get it off the camera. Big croc! I passed on the news at the morning team meeting. No sign of it today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)