Dr Ajay Rane and Flourishing Woman pitch in to help Ingham recover
A group of charitable medical professionals have been over-whelmed by the strength and resilience of a North Queensland town hammered by recent flooding.
News
Don't miss out on the headlines from News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A group of medical professionals has banded together to help those devastated by flooding in the Ingham region by providing food, supplies, jerry cans and medical assistance.
Professor Ajay Rane put the call out to fellow medical practitioners last week in response to the recent North Queensland flood event to help impacted communities in the region and was overwhelmed by offers of help.
The professor is no stranger to charity, having helped found Flourishing Woman to assist women in need around the world. Many of the professor’s patients and other volunteer doctors’ patients also came from flood affected areas and so it was an easy decision to give back to these communities in their time of hardship.
He said following the assistance given to Ingham flood victims a network of Townsville volunteers had been establishe - able and willing to put up their hands to help in future disaster events in the regional area.
“We were very devastated to see in our catchment area people suffering so much from the floods, especially Ingham, Macknade, Taylor’s Beach, Halifax, and, of course, the Burdekin as well,” Professor Rane said.
“Operations were cancelled, patients were suffering, and a community that has given us so much, obviously, we felt that there’s something that we need to do as medical professionals to give back.”
He said he put out a WhatsApp group call out to the private doctors of Townsville to asking for help.
“They just asked us the same question - how can we help?”
Professor Rane said at first they tried to connect to the local disaster group without success before deciding to head up to Ingham themselves.
“We decided to take two trucks to Ingham, and we had 100 meals. We had jerry cans, we had gurneys and we had towels, air mattresses and sheets.
“We just loaded it and we had no idea what we are going to find but myself, Dr Jay Iyer and Dr Rahul Dua, we met up with some amazing people in Ingham.
“One was Donna Seri and her daughter, Mia, a medical student who was introduced to us through Mark Gusmeroli and his wife, Katrina.
“They had door knocked almost half the town (Ingham), and had a list of people who were really doing it badly, who had no food, no refrigeration, etc., and with their help we went all around Ingham.”
The Professor said they did not initially realise that the Premier David Crisafulli and Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton were in the Ingham region at the same time and they were just behind them when the road to Halifax was reopened after the flooding.
“We suddenly found out that Peter Dutton and the Premier had just gone to Macknade and Halifax, as the road had just opened 30 minutes before, and so we were literally one hour behind them, and we saw first-hand what was happening in Macknade, in Halifax and Taylor’s Beach.
“We were absolutely shocked, but we’re also very, very grateful to meet some amazing people and offer them food, offer them jerry cans, offer them gurneys and offer to help them.
“A couple of people there needed semi acute medical help, and to have physicians like Doctor Dua with us was a godsend.
“So we were able to look after these people then and there, arranged their blood tests and arranged their appointments and everything.
“It was a very fruitful day for Flourishing Women to be able to go as soon as the roads opened and offer some help and give back a little bit of what we could to a community that has given us so much.”
He said it was amazing to see how proud and resilient those affected by the flood had been.
“Had the locals not been with us, we would have found it difficult to actually find out who were the most vulnerable and who needed help. We are very grateful to them, because we didn’t want to offend anybody by offering people food or shelter.
“We met a 90 year old lady who was a theatre nurse at the Townsville hospital. We met a single parent with two kids living in a car with no mattress, no electricity and no food, because the house was completely gutted.
“We met a wonderful team from Saunders Beach Rural Fire Brigade cleaning the house, and it was lovely to walk in and offer them a dozen hot meals, and these they were ever so grateful for somebody bringing them some food and really valuing their work.”
The professor said they were all shocked at how bad the conditions were in Halifax, Macknade and Taylor’s Beach when they arrived.
“The amount of water that we saw because only the road was clear, but though there was water everywhere, the smell, there were crocodiles everywhere, and these people were wading through waist-deep water still, obviously, to survive.
“I had never seen the river so swollen and so much water, even in the 2019 floods.
“It is quite incredible to see how vulnerable these communities are once the water comes up to 1.5 meters. It just everything goes under and there is no way for them to go. But they use their wits.
“It was quite interesting that even the people who have been there for 40 years said ‘we’ve never seen anything like this’.
“I think it can be quite daunting if someone has never seen floods and flood water lying around to see what actually can happen.
“So for us, it was an experience that we, even though we used to the floods in Townsville with the (Aplins) weir going over and the Bohle (bridge) closing - this is a different level altogether.”
The professor said the initial experience of helping flood victims in Ingham had set the stage to help with future natural disasters.
“This experience obviously has prepared us better as to what we might do even earlier and 100 meals disappeared within two hours. I think we could have taken 400 meals and still would have been short.
“But the whole idea of maybe understanding the medical needs - I think emergency always looks at cleaning and life saving. But also there are people who are sick, who might need maybe just consultation or reassurance.
“The other important message probably here was everybody feels helpless and feels what are they going to do and I think we need more channels for people to be able to give and genuinely, then believe that whatever they are giving is going to go to the right place.
“That’s why we thought we will be hands on. We will do this by ourselves and I think there will be lot more doctors who would be happy to volunteer because these national disasters are not going to go away.
“But without the help of the locals it would have been virtually impossible for us to do what we did.
“The locals were just unbelievable. Donna Seri especially was just incredible. She just was running around in the heat, knocking on doors and had a list of people who she thought were vulnerable.
“It was an honour to look after that community.”
He said he and other medical professionals where now primed to help in future disaster emergencies.
“We are fired up now we know exactly what to learn from this and also to we’re fired up because we know that people are willing.
“If there is a way so we are confident we can facilitate, paving the way so that they can contribute. I am definitely feeling far more confident that that’s what we’ll do, and we’ll do it earlier, because I think that was the best part of this trip, which was we were the first to go, as soon as the road is opened.
“It was really an eye opener, but more importantly, it was an honour to look after these people who have given us so much over the years,” he said.
More Coverage
Originally published as Dr Ajay Rane and Flourishing Woman pitch in to help Ingham recover
TOP 50: Vote for Townsville’s Cutest Toddler of 2025
You’ve voted for the top 50 cutest toddlers in Townsville, now it’s time to vote for the top 10.
‘The Labor party’s full of s**t’: Union’s hard-line stance on new government
A North Queensland contingent of a union has made its thoughts on a returning federal government crystal clear, as organisers bring workers together to fight for a common cause.