Caitlin O’Connor and Fiona Tomaszewski on being nurses in the Northern Territory

Two nurses in very different fields have reflected on their experiences working in the ‘isolated’ health environment of the Territory. Read how they’ve made a difference to the industry.

In an environment as isolated and diverse as the Northern Territory, nursing is not for everyone.

But the dedicated and resilient few who take it up are worth celebrating.

Remote area nurse practitioner candidate Caitlin O’Connor moved up from Sydney to give remote nursing a go — that was 10 years ago, and she hasn’t looked back.

“Nursing here is about getting out into the community and doing healthcare on people’s own terms,” she said.

Caitlin O'Connor works as an outreach nurse practitioner in the West Arnhem region. Picture: Supplied

“You have the opportunity to practice a bit more autonomously and learn lots of skills — I have learned skills like suturing and plastering and things I would never have the opportunity to try out in the city.”

Ms O’Connor said “no two days are the same” but some are definitely more exciting, and more strange, than others.

“I remember one of the first couple of years when I was in Central Australia having to extract a goanna who had embedded himself in a beer can,” she said.

“I’ve done a few exciting ones where patients have injured themselves in Barramundi Gorge, having to go out in the ambulance, hike out to the patient, stabilise them, and then CareFlight comes in with a chopper and winches them out.”

Ms O’Connor said while she wouldn’t want to be in any other environment, she said remote work wasn’t for the faint-hearted.

“I think you have to be a bit more resilient because it is isolated and you have to be prepared to manage that — it’s a challenging job, sometimes you are the only person with that patient that’s got clinical knowledge.”

A far cry from the outback, Fiona Tomaszewski works as a hospital resource co-ordinator at Royal Darwin and Palmerston hospitals.

Fiona Tomaszewski is a Hospital Resource Coordinator at Royal Darwin and Palmerston Hospital and has worked in the industry and the Territory for 15 years. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

She has worked in the industry and the Territory for 15 years and said it was the diversity of the job that has had a hold on her for so long.

The nature of her latest role is to be involved in “everything that happens around the place”, from managing the day-to-day, to attending all emergency codes and transporting patients from overseas and interstate.

“Being in the Top End of Australia, we get patients into the Territory from remote communities and all over the NT as well as the top of WA,” she said.

“Then you have people coming in from cruise ships and oil rigs.”

Over the past decade and a half Ms Tomaszewski said she had witnessed plenty of change, especially in the field of oncology which she is most passionate about.

“Working in oncology is that you’re with your patient from initial diagnosis right through their treatment until they get to celebrate being cancer free, it’s a journey and you get to know your patients really well,” she said.

This International Nurses Day Ms Tomaszewski said anyone who decided to work in the NT deserved recognition for their contributions.

“The staff that we have working in our organisation, they are definitely a dedicated group of nurses — people come here to experience something different and we can definitely offer them that.”