MARCIA Hunt has been a nurse for 51 years and spent 18 years of that time treating rural women throughout the North and South Burnett but it’s only now that she feels she has reached her full potential.
The Murgon lady offers free, confidential health services to women specialising in everything from pap smears to mental health.
Knowing all to well that finding the time or motivation to get to a doctor can be avoided by most people on the land, Ms Hunt’s travelling schedule means she can be a friendly face but one they can assure they won’t run into at the local newsagency the next morning.
“I’ve been visiting on a very regular basis but I’m still no part of (their community) and it allows them often at times to open up and start talking about deep seated issues and problems,” she said.
“It’s just woman to woman.
“I think growing up on the land and always having my feet in the dirt has also been one of the real positives because it gives me a lot of connection with people.”
Ms Hunt has gone through plenty of cars, kilometres and generations in her time as the region’s women’s health nurse.
She has also noticed a change in the deep care for patients which is something she doesn’t want to follow.
“(My job is important to rural women) because in a lot of places we have male GPs but at the same time GPs haven’t got that extra little bit of time that I have got,” she said.
When asked if she had plans to retire any time soon, there was no need to think before answering.
“People keep saying when are you going to retire, I say never because I just love it,” she said.
“I sort of feel now that I have probably got as much if not more to offer than I have ever got to offer.
“When I first started doing nursing back in the mid 1960s, cancer of the cervix was one of the biggest killers of women where as now women don’t even think of that.
“It’s really really exciting.”
To contact Ms Hunt or find out when she is visiting your area next, call her on (07) 4169 8203
