Dr John - a life well lived

Alice Springs usually gets a bad rap in the media. Some of it is probably justified, but my recent experience is a very different and more positive story. And I’m giving the medical team at the Alice Springs Hospital a very big and justly deserved shout-out as a result. A visit to the hospital certainly wasn’t on the itinerary of our recent NT tour. But the trip didn’t quite go according to plan. We booked this tour - that included Uluru, Kakadu, Alice Springs and Darwin – months ago, and long before there was the possibility of another state election so soon after the one held last year, which also involved heading to the polls twelve months early. But that’s by the by. Day One of the tour, which started at Uluru, involved a sunrise viewing of the iconic Rock. But while heading up to the viewing platform I stopped – a bit too suddenly maybe – to avoid intruding on the view of some chap taking a photo. I either slipped or skidded on the shaley path and fell badly. My left hand took the brunt of the fall, (my phone was in the other hand) resulting in a fractured wrist. Since I’m a leftie this was rather serious. It was also very painful. Back at the hotel Anna the tour director, ensured I was able to see the team at the small Yulara Medical Centre before we were due to head to Alice Springs. The medics there were great too, taking X-rays to send to Alice Springs hospital, and strapping my wrist up more securely. At Alice I was dropped off at the ED and yes, it was a lengthy and tedious wait – exacerbated to a degree by the fact we’d arrived on Territory Day – the one day in the year that NT folk are allowed to set off fireworks. And they do so with gusto, which always involves multiple injuries and a crowded ED. So while I was eventually seen by the medics the hour was advancing a lot and the decision was made for me to return at 6.30am the following morning so I could have surgery. This was deemed essential given I’m cack-handed, and I’m extremely grateful for that decision being made. Obviously I missed visiting the various things the rest of the group did that day, but fixing my wrist was much more important. Arguably it would have been more sensible to suggest I go to Outpatients rather than the ED, but that didn’t happen so the wait was considerably longer than it needed to be – and I certainly saw a slice of life I wouldn’t otherwise have seen, mostly involving Indigenous people and reinforcing some of the stereotypes we hear about in the media. But once it was all systems go, it really was and thanks to Lewis, Mitch, Prof Julian, Dr Ping and others whose names I cannot remember, for taking such care and making such an incredible job of the surgery to reset my poor wrist. Never let anyone say the care and professionalism of all the staff at Alice Springs Hospital was other than exemplary. It’s an opinion that was endorsed this week at Launceston’s Orthopaedic Clinic where the doctors who commented on my scar and the stitches (and more X-rays) were full of praise for surgery well done, when the temporary cast finally came off. Even so, with one of those removeable support contraptions taking the place of a cast, I still have four weeks of no driving, and some very careful and gentle exercises to do. Life can certainly be full of challenges, and this challenge was definitely neither wanted or expected, but it is what it is – while typing one-handed has become a new skill!

Part memoir and part story of how a community came together and stopped a pulp mill being built in Tasmania's Tamar Valley.