FOR much of the 20th century, one of the major forces for health and safety in pastoralist country was pioneering women and their trusty vehicles.
Charles Darwin University Nursing Museum curator Janie Mason said bush nurses had been key in providing healthcare in the NT, and other states, since the late 1800s – with nurses first making their way to Darwin in 1874.
“Bush nurses have been about for a long time,” she said. “They would bring health services to people out of the main settlement.”
One of the ways this happened was through the department formerly known as Commonwealth Health, which set up mobile nursing units.
“Sisters used to talk about being ‘on the mobile’,” Janie said.
Different routes were taken out of the major centres throughout NT, such as Darwin, Katherine and Tennant Creek, with the Alice Springs route known as the Sandover Mobile.
“They would have one or two nurses in a vehicle, usually in a soft-top, with a radio in the back,” she said.
“From Alice Springs they would go out to the cattle stations and Aboriginal camps.”
Janie said some stations would provide accommodation but sometimes nurses would have to camp along the way.
“It could be pretty primitive,” she said.
The nursing facilities could also be hit-and-miss.
“Often they would just pull up under a tree and see patients or run a clinic out of the back of the vehicle,” she said.
In order to maintain safety, the nurses had strict radio schedules to maintain to check back in with the base.
“They had to report in one to two times a day and had to keep to that schedule,” Janie said. “So the radio would be plonked on the bonnet, and plugged in to the car battery, then the aerial would be thrown over a tree. This was happening in the 1960s, ’70s and well into the ’80s.”
Janie said from the 1980s there was a shift, as more communications technology became available and aerial and road transport improved, with it becoming more commonplace to simply evacuate a sick or injured person to hospital.
She said many of the women, all trained nurses and predominantly from other states, went to the NT through church groups, with the Lutheran church influence particularly strong in Alice Springs.
“Other people came for the adventure,” she said.
“Nurses traditionally have been huge tourists, even before tourism became such a natural part of life.”
Janie, herself a former nurse, said during these times, the nurses had shouldered a lot of responsibility.
“Our patients had a lot of faith in us,” she said.
The legacy of the bush nurse, and their important place in country life, has been recognised with a museum display in Darwin.
As part of plans to mark International Nurses Day, and coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the facility, the Charles Darwin University Nursing Museum hosted a display on bush nurses.
Janie said it would celebrate the lives and impact of those nurses who took to the road to aid their remote and regional patients.
“The collections hold national significance in Australia’s cultural heritage and are vital in continuing to tell the story of nurses and nursing,” she said.
The collection includes images taken between the 1920s through to the late 1980s, showcasing some of the adventures and challenges faced by these nurses while living and working in remote areas.