Behind the scenes on I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! with the medical team on hand 24/7

THEY might not be stars of the show, but the medical team on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! are the heroes behind the scenes.

OUTSIDE of their fellow campmates, a small team of medics are some of the few people to have regular access to contestants on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! outside of their fellow campmates.

Paramedics, a doctor and a psychologist are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week to provide support to contestants battling it out in the South African jungle camp on the reality TV show.

Psychologist Kate Baecher made a cameo in front of the camera this week when 80s pop singer Tiffany attempted to overcome her fear of heights on the Hang-ry Birds Tucker Trial. But there’s a lot more to her job — she is on hand for celebrities to vent and talk through their issues and also monitors their behaviour in camp.

“Every day is different,” the former army psych, who served in Afghanistan, explained.

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Members of the medical team on set of I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! Psychologist Kate Baecher & medical doctor Riese Jansen van Rensburg.

“It could be responding to the rhythms and what is happening in the camp, whether it is advising on camp dynamics or talking to production about what is coming up in the show in terms of the celebrities and their fears. A lot of it is behavioural analysis as well. I spend hours and hours each day watching the streams (on televisions) of celebrities to identify any problematic or concerning behaviours, changing moods and responses, just keeping an eye on them.”

Baecher, 35, added: “We make sure their welfare is always monitored physically as well as emotionally.”

Detoxing is a big issue and it isn’t just from smoking, coffee or sugar. Technology and city life is also a big thing.

Helping celebrities with fears and phobias is also a huge part of Baecher’s day to day on set.

Baecher meets all celebrities before they go in to the jungle, assessing their mental health. She is of course on hand during the show but also makes herself available to the celebrities when they leave the jungle.

“It is before, during and after that I help them assimilate and process the experience,” she said.

“It is a huge in all respects, not knowing what is going on.

Psychologist Kate Baecher.

“For these celebrities, they are not accustomed to uncertainty and they are usually high achievers, which means that they have control over their world and what they are doing so if you take away all of that, they have to learn to deal with not knowing.

“That goes on throughout, then there are the fears and phobias, then there is living with people they don’t choose or know. And once they’ve finally settled and enjoying the simplicity of a stimulus free world, they come out and go straight back into the world and it is sensory overload.

“It can be really overwhelming and the energy it takes can be quite significant so we teach them how to manage that.”

Medical facilities on site are better than most hospitals within a couple of hundred kilometre radius.

Led by doctor Riesa Jansen van Rensburg, the facility is able to accommodate any emergency, including minor operations.

Simone Holtznagel and Josh Gibson partaking in a challenge, with the medical team on standby in case anything goes wrong.

“We are pretty well jacked up here,” she said. “We’ve got helicopters on standby, an ambulance on the ground here and a team of paramedics with more than 50 years of experience combined.”

Someone from the medical team is on site 24 hours a day, seven days a week to look after the celebrities, and crew.

They are also on hand to work with production on the various challenges for the show.

While highly venomous snakes like Mozambique spitting cobra, boomslang, black mamba and puff adder are native to the area, government regulations mean anti-venom is not kept on site.

“In South Africa we have very specific criteria for when to use anti venom and also you have to use it within a theatre facility,” she explained. “We haven’t had any wild snake bites but every now and then the critter guys get munched on by a snake.”

* The journalist is in South Africa as a guest of Channel Ten.