'It's life or death stuff out there.' What it's like being a GP in the most remote parts of Australia.

For some time now, conversations have been rife about the burnout and pressure Australian GPs are facing.

But doctors in regional or remote areas have a particularly complex challenge on their hands compared to their city counterparts.

It's a reality Dr Sonia Henry has seen firsthand. 

Dr Henry's working life changed completely three years ago. She was burnout, about to turn 34, had just come out of a "damaging relationship" with a heart surgeon, and felt she had hit a wall with her career as a GP in Sydney.

"My life was very Sydney-focused. My holidays were to Europe, I lived in the inner city, I loved shopping and going to nice food spots. I was very lucky. I had very little experience with going out bush," she tells Mamamia.

So when a job opportunity came up to be the only GP in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, she figured why the hell not! It fit her qualifications and it was a fresh start to a new, exciting chapter. 

"A few days later I was on the plane. I literally had one suitcase that I had packed a bit haphazardly, and an old stethoscope. Plus, it was COVID-19 times, so I just made it across the border."

Dr Henry says she'll never forget the moment she arrived in the Pilbara.

"Driving down the highway, you realise you're in the middle of nowhere. It's literally just endless red earth, sky and table-top mountains. I've never had an experience like it since."

For three months Dr Henry was the only GP in the Pilbara region, and for the next two years, she continued to do remote GP work across rural Australia. Along the way, she learned a significant amount about just how challenging it is for these communities to gain access to basic care, medicine and emergency treatment. 

She's reflected on this whole experience in her new memoir, Put Your Feet in the Dirt, Girl.

Watch: 'Prepare for worst, hope for the best' Royal Flying Doctors. Post continues below.

"The lack of access is astounding. Even bloods (for transfusions and other needs) have to be flown in and flown out to the regions," Dr Henry says. 

"I learned there are doctors working in these parts of the country where their only support if an emergency happens is a seriously understaffed Royal Flying Doctor's service. If they can't get to your town, you're on your own for like eight to 10 hours."

When Dr Henry was in the Pilbara, she was the sole GP for a town of around 300 people. She explains that it was mostly FIFO mining workers who lived there, but there were also some permanent residents, and a large First Nations community.

She at once realised one of the best qualities a GP can have is simply to listen to their patient.

"Before my time there, many of the people said there'd been a lot of doctors sort of flooding in and flooding out which is no fault of their own. But it left the locals feeling not heard. When you listen to patients, you actually have a much better understanding of their health issues, particularly mental health," she says.

Understandably, there was a lot of time and resource pressure on Dr Henry too. But that's what happens when you are the sole provider of healthcare within a 300 to 500 km radius.

Even in regional areas, many are waiting upwards of three months to see their GP — and that's if you can find a clinic whose books aren't closed. Dr Heny tells Mamamia there isn't a single permanent GP along the whole of the Murray Darling River.

"I once had to ring the Royal Flying Doctor service for an emergency, and they unfortunately had no planes available to get to us. They said: 'You're on your own kid'. They were simply just understaffed. The emergency patient was a friend of mine who went into a very dangerous heart arrhythmia who had a background of a serious cardiac condition."

Fortunately, the patient survived. Though Dr Henry knew while treating him that if she "screwed this up", there was a good chance he would have died.

"It's life or death stuff out there. In Sydney, that wouldn't happen. You'd be in a major hospital within 10 minutes, and you'd be fine. It's experiences like that which made me really angry at the injustice in our healthcare system. How can we all say we're Australian when people are having such different experiences?"

Dr Sonia Henry during her time working in remote areas. Image: Supplied. 

Speak to any GP across Australia right now, and they'll tell you their workforce is experiencing a major burnout crisis. This is both in cities and regionally.

Although this isn't a case of 'the pain Olympics', regional and rural GPs do have a far more complex issue on their hands. 

"Overall, I think Australia has treated their GPs pretty badly. We often get blamed for issues in the health system. Whereas it's actually GPs that are keeping people out of the economic sinkhole that are hospitals. It's the blood and guts work of general practice that keeps people healthy and safe, particularly in remote Aboriginal communities," Dr Henry tells Mamamia. 

It was working closely with Indigenous people in these remote parts of Australia, that was a major wake-up call for Dr Henry. 

"There was diabetes, rheumatic heart disease, untreated middle ear infections, and one GP I spoke to also said they saw cases of leprosy and tertiary syphilis. This is stuff that a supposedly developed country shouldn't be seeing, and yet it's everywhere out there. They are conditions that can be prevented with good healthcare access."

Not only does this example speak to the inequalities our First Nations people have faced for decades, but also a distinctive divide between Australia's cities and regional areas. 

"I fear the gap is getting wider. And I don't think much has changed in remote Aboriginal communities, if anything their health outcomes are getting worse," Dr Henry notes. "For people in the city, I just hope they realise what's really happening in their own country."

After the Pilbara, Dr Henry has gone on to work in central northwest New South Wales, other parts of Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory. Seeing these places, the people and getting to know the local healthcare system in each town has been eye-opening. But also seeing the sheer sense of community in regional/remote areas has been powerful too. 

By writing her memoir Dr Henry says she hopes it encourages young med students in particular to give working in the regions a go. 

"I am very proud to be a GP. It's a real privilege to be able to have people trust in you. I just hope my book can encourage some people to pursue a career in general practice — especially in remote areas. It's the experience of a lifetime."

You can purchase a copy of Dr Sonia Henry's memoir Put Your Feet in the Dirt, Girl, here. 

Feature Image: Supplied.

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