
Picture this.
You are 76 years of age. You are an Australian nutritionist who has worked alongside your husband, an Australian medical doctor and aged 81, in a tiny West African village for 43 years.
Together you run the sole surgical clinic in Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest nations, that accommodates about 140 patients. Most of them don’t have beds in your clinic but many of your patients have never slept on a bed so it works.

Your husband is the only surgeon in the region which is home to two million people, and is supported by a small team of local staff working six days a week operating for six hours a day. The needs are unimaginable and the cases are horrific which is why you very rarely take holidays.