Sonia Henry, 37, from Sydney, NSW, shares her story:
The taxi driver looked at me curiously.
“What brings you here?” he asked.
“I’m a doctor,” I explained. “I’m working up in the Pilbara for a few months.”
“Bit different up there from Sydney,” he replied. “What are you running away from?”
I didn’t respond, even though his assumption was spot-on.
It was 2021, and at the age of 34, I’d been looking for any excuse to get out of Sydney ever since my relationship with a surgeon ended in heartbreak.
He’d messaged me on Instagram after we’d briefly met at a hospital ball years earlier, opening up about his struggles at work and separating from his wife, and was really interested in hearing all about my life as a GP.
“I’ve never met anyone like you,” he gushed.
But my bubble was burst months later after a friend who’d previously worked with him messaged me.
Babe, I don’t think he’s separated anymore, she wrote, sending screenshots of his wife’s Facebook posts. It looks like they’ve been back together for ages and his wife just had a baby.
It felt like he’d sucked my blood dry.
Disillusioned by his deception and desperate to get out of the city, I hatched an escape plan.
Sonia decided it was time for a change (Image: Belinda O’Dwyer)
I lined up a job in Ireland but two days before my flight, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and the borders were closed.
After spending the next year losing myself in the stress of working throughout the pandemic, I joined a locum agency that specialised in finding work for GPs in remote parts of Australia.
Truth was, I didn’t have a keen interest in working in rural areas.
But after a rough couple of years, I needed a fresh start to save myself.
A lady from the agency told me they urgently needed someone to fill the position of the solo doctor in a small mining town in WA’s Pilbara region.
“I’ll take it,” I replied, quickly packing a single suitcase with some clothes and an old stethoscope.
I’d never heard of this town before, but the moment I arrived there, my fear melted away.
The sight of endless red earth and table-top mountains instantly put me at ease.
Everything’s going to be okay, I thought.
The worries of my hectic city life and the heart surgeon’s lies were already starting to fade.
Starting work at the medical clinic in this mining town with a population of 300 people was a real culture shock.
Not only was the nearest hospital 400km away, I’d have to wait for the Royal Flying Doctor Service to arrive if I needed help.
New beginnings (Image: supplied)
Samples had to be flown in and out and a lot of the medical equipment that was considered standard in Sydney was nowhere to be found.
One night, I met Colm, a tough-as-nails drill blaster who was brought to the clinic on a stretcher.
His heart rate was through the roof – a condition Colm told me he’d experienced before, but never for this long.
“It usually stops on its own,” he said.
I called the flying doctors.
“Sorry, we don’t have any planes available,” a man said. “Best we can do is 6am.”
Panic started to set in.
I knew Colm couldn’t survive if his heart kept beating like this, so I made a decision.
“Mate, I’m going to get a very cold tub of water and I want you to put your face into it,” I instructed him. “This should stimulate a nerve in your
body that can throw your heart back into its normal rhythm.”
After what felt like an eternity, Colm lifted his face from the freezing water and looked up at me.
“I think it’s stopped,” he replied.
Sighing with utter relief, I arranged for Colm to take the next plane to Perth to see a cardiologist.
There were many hair-rising moments like this while working in Pilbara, but I also grew to love the town and the connections I made with people living there.
Meeting patients who’d had to wait months for their appointment opened my eyes to the injustices in our country’s healthcare system.
And when things got tough, swimming in the local pool helped calm me.
After three months in Pilbara, I decided to keep broadening my horizons.
Sonia at The grotto, Kimberley region (Photo: D Corbett)
I spent a few weeks working in a remote town a few hundred kilometres west of Dubbo, NSW before moving onto a remote river town near Bourke, NSW.
Seeing the health issues in this place, which had a large Aboriginal population, was even more confronting.
I treated 25-year-old Indigenous people with Type 2 diabetes, young kids with rheumatic heart disease, and children who’d had so many untreated ear infections they were now profoundly deaf.
“No one gets old here,” Harry, one of the clinic’s health care workers, explained to me. “We all die before we get the chance.”
There were times I lost faith in humanity, but it was always the powerful sense of community in these remote places that kept me going.
I continued to forge strong connections with people and awe in Australia’s beauty as I spent the next two years working remotely across NSW, WA, SA and the NT.
It was an adventure (Image: Belinda O’Dwyer)
I’m now back in Sydney but continue to regularly work in remote areas across the country each year.
I decided to share my experiences of working in the bush in my memoir, Put Your Feet in the Dirt, Girl.
Living and working in some of the most remote parts of the country not only helped me find my feet again, it showed me the realities of the very different lives some people are living in Australia.
I also learnt that home was a place I could find within myself no matter where I lived, and that’s brought me a great sense of peace.
Sonia’s memoir, published by Allen & Unwin
