Three weeks break and back to it

After a three week break and a settlement on a new property in Port Douglas (we are now officially mortgage stressed according to the stats) I return to work with three weeks of 24/7 at Julia Creek and nearly four weeks (also 24/7) at Normanton. Both places are in far north Queensland but are vastly different.

 Well ... I guess a comment on the property purchase first. Having worked in FNQ for over 5 years and especially loving the area around Cairns, and having watched the real-estate market for over three years around the Mossman Port Douglas area, I decided to make a significant life decision. Instead the option of working locums part time and relatively casually, I have effectively committed myself to working close to full time for at least another 5 years. I guess it was to create an additional purpose to the reason why one works for an income by buying a second "home away from home". Melbourne is still our home, and for quite important family reasons will remain so for at least the medium term future (if one can plan for such anyway) but a house/villa in Port Douglas gives my family a second locale to enjoy the fruits of my labours.

 Julia Creek ... in central north Queensland on the main road between Mt Isa and Townsville. A relative small town, with a 16 bed hospital built in 1972, in the middle of cattle country. A wide, open and expansive place. Two pubs in town, two small "supermarket" type stores, railway along the edge of town. Friendly people. Had Christmas and New Year in Julia Creek. I have a few photos of the area in my Project 366 album. The work was relatively quiet, apparently those who would have left town for the holiday break had already left, and others were preparing for a long, isolated stay on station when the wet hits.

 Normanton ... further to the north and much closer to the Gulf of Carpentaria, about 75km circuitous drive to the coast. I am there currently. It has a high proportion of indigenous people in town, three pubs, a couple of small "supermarket" style stores. It is on the edge of "wet country". The bird life is abundant, including the more exotic brolgas that are a delight to see both on the ground and in the air. 

The work is quite different to what I was doing in Julia Creek, including more after hours work, more hospital admissions and a twice a week trip to Karumba on the coast to run a clinic. It is now wet season and despite (at this instant in time) it not raining every day, when it does rain it is quite heavy, and add to that the water from "upstream" and the wet country being tidal, many roads into and around Normanton are now closed.

 Had an interesting experience yesterday when the road to Karumba was officially open but the 07:30 report said there was 450mm (others in the know were saying 350mm+) of water (flowing) over the bridge on the road to Karumba. 4WD only and "use extreme caution" ... well no way I was going to attempt the trip in a yuppy 4WD (a lot of these around but the high clearance work vehicles usually not supplied by Queensland Health) so my "extreme caution" measure was to not go. Council refused to authorise a helicopter shuttle (about 9 minutes flying time I am told) because the road was still officially open, so the clinic had to be cancelled.

 Interesting "tropical medicine" in the area ... learned about a few bugs I had never heard of and some I had forgotten about.

  Stenotrophomonas maltophilia causing a wound infection is not nice. I am also reminded that alcohol consumption is the bane of some remote communities and a significant reason for after hours presentation for medical treatment.

 Yarrabah from the end of February is not a happening thing, other arrangements are in place to cover the medical services from Cairns doctors on rotation. I expect this will eventually be good for the community at Yarrabah to have the "indigenous medicine naive" medicos become aware of the different needs of our indigenous brothers and sisters and hopefully temper the racism in the medical care in the larger centres.  Interestingly a recent study confirms that racism (unconscious or otherwise) is present in our medical system in Australia.

 I am currently having my locum agents (hi Sarah and Charlie !!) working on getting me a placement in Gladstone (its been a long time since I have been there) and possibly followed by work in Mt Isa (twelve months since being there). Nothing definite booked after that except just over 2 months in Uluru October - December this year.

Will chat again another time.