Testimonial: Catherine

“You can learn the map of the city and the train timetable, but that doesn’t mean you know anything about the people or the place.”

The First Wave Indigenous health experience gave me a privileged introduction into a community and an important aspect of health care in Western Australia.

The experience has clarified some of the lessons I have learnt about the importance of family, kinship and country in Aboriginal communities. How important the legacy of history is and the impact of colonialism, about patient-centred care, the determinants of health, and the crucial role mindful communication makes. It has also underlined the limits of my knowledge of Aboriginal health issues.

Mawarankarra is a community-run Aboriginal medical service in Roebourne. Roebourne is a small town with a difficult history that has given rise to a challenging present. Located by the side of a highway, just a short drive from Karratha in the Pilbara region it did not take me long to learn something of the resilience of the community, and how alive and real culture and country are intertwined and sown into the lives of the people I met and live there.

Against the backdrop of this difficult history, I got to experience the real sense of how significant culture, country and kinship were in the lives of the people I met alongside some appreciation of the environment and conditions shaping medical practice in the region.