A NEW book on the shelves, Bush Nurses, may describe itself as “inspiring true stories of nursing bravery and ingenuity”, but at its heart it’s a love story.
Not only does a love of people and caring shine through from the nurses; so does the book editor’s love of her subjects and the incredible experiences they have shared.
“I can’t imagine the amount of responsibility being a lone nurse engenders,” Annabelle Brayley said.
“I’d just love to hug every nurse that does stuff like that.”
Taking in nearly a century of nursing and incorporating stories from ambulance drivers and Aboriginal health workers as well as traditional nurses, the book is probably the first comprehensive look at the incredible work these support workers have done behind the scenes, in all state and territories of Australia.
“I wanted to celebrate the nurses who work in rural and remote places, and raise awareness of them,” Annabelle said.
“They’re just there in our communities – we all ring them for advice, whether they’re officially working or not, and they never say no to us.”
Annabelle comes from Morven in south west Queensland and trained as a nurse herself, so she understands what goes on behind the scenes.
She has also always loved a good yarn – she wanted to be a hairdresser because “everyone tells their hairdresser their story” – but her father made her choose nursing or teaching.
She began freelancing in a small way in 2006, so when Penguin approached her to be the editor for their project to bring the trials and tribulations of bush nurses alive, she was never going to knock that offer back.
“It was better than winning lotto,” she said.
“It’s so difficult to get your foot in the door, and it gave me access to people I’d not had before.”
Although she used all the networks at her disposal – the National Rural Health Alliance, social networking accounts, the Council of Remote Area Nurses, the Frontier Services group, her own contacts and knowledge of people in the industry – Annabelle still had doubts whether it would work.
“Nurses generally don’t think their stories are important,” she said.
But respond they did, either sitting down and penning their own recollections, or ringing Annabelle to talk.
On occasions she travelled to the nurse she wanted to see and conducted a face-to-face interview.
After that, her editing was kept to a minimum, to keep the authenticity of the contributors.
“I tried very hard to keep the voice of the person talking,” she said.
“I wanted the stories to reflect the language and personality of the people involved.”
For some of the nurses, telling Annabelle their story was the first opportunity they’d had to unburden themselves fully, a very emotional experience for them and for the editor.
One of these, titled Rollover, is registered nurse Anna Burley’s account of a car accident east of Bedourie in Queensland’s far west.
Being 750km from Charleville and 600km from Mt Isa, and having only the local shire council mechanic as her ambulance driver, she had to deal with four seriously injured people on her own.
“The nurses hold a lot inside because of confidentiality,” Annabelle said.
“It was such a privilege that they were able to talk to me.”
As well as being anecdotal, the stories are a social history, beginning with Jean Mittelhauser’s memoirs of working with the Australian Inland Mission at Maranboy in the Northern Territory in 1920.
She writes about stores arriving every six months by horse-drawn wagon, mail deliveries every six to eight weeks and corroborees at the nearby Aboriginal camp.
One of the more recent stories comes from Christmas Island and is nurse Christine Foletti’s account of the shipwreck of a refugee boat on the island’s rocks in a storm.
“As the evening rolls on the RFDS leaves with patients, staff clean and restock, looking for a reason to stay close to others, and then it is time to go. Outside the whole world is exhausted,” she writes.
As well as very poignant stories like these, there are others that are very funny.
“I think everyone who is interested in reading will find a story there that resonates,” Annabelle said.
“There’s enough drama and history, and a smidge of romance, to suit every taste.”
The reaction to the book’s publication has been enthusiastic, with many people commenting to Annabelle that they didn’t really know what nurses did before reading it.
“Even city nurses have said this to me. I got a tweet from a city nurse who wants to go bush after reading the book – that was very exciting for me.”
Annabelle has been contracted by Penguin to work on a second book now, also about nurses but “a different kind of book” is all she can say about it at this stage.
