The Heart of Australia.....The Red Center

John has attended his first Australian Medical Conference which is the Winter Symposium of the Australian College of Emergency Medicine in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia. He booked this conference because of its proximity to Uluru, or Ayers Rock, which happens to be one of the iconic symbols of Australia. This was definitely on our "to do" list and this was a means to get there. It also had many interesting topics dealing with remote emergency medicine issues. Being based in Bundaberg, which is a regional medical center with relatively easy access to Brisbane, he hasn't had to deal with the remote issues that being hundreds or thousands of kilometers from a level one trauma center can create. When you need a neurosurgeon here, you get flown to Adelaide in South Australia. The Alice Springs Hospital catchment area is 1.6 million square km, most being in towns many hundreds of kilometers away.

Can you find Alice Springs?

So we started out early going from Bundaberg to Brisbane then Alice Springs. Whenever we have to go anywhere, it means going to Brisbane first. We arrived at Alice by midday and went right to our hotel which happens to be where the conference happens. It is mid Winter here which means lows of 40 degrees and highs in the low 70's. It was overcast and cool when we arrived not much above 55 I'd say. The conference started Sunday afternoon with registration and some prearranged activities for which we had signed up.

Our afternoon was a drive up to the Standley Chasm which is 50 km from Alice Springs. Our guide was a lovely guy named Bob Taylor, who was a chef in a prior lifetime and of Aboriginal decent.

This is significant because of his knowledge of the land and his Bush Cooking expertise. We were a group of 15 and all part of the conference.

We had a relatively short walk to the Standley Chasm

and then a high tea in the campground when we returned. "Bush Tucker" is what Bob served up, and it was home baked bread, emu sausage, kangaroo fillets, dry roasted macadamia nuts, waddle spice with olive oil. We had tea and coffee all served on a table with china plates and table clothes. We were blown away.

Bob shared some of his cultural takes on things, which was the only personal Aboriginal discussion we had with anyone. I will share the cultural problems later. Here's some of the "Bush Tucker".

Dry Roasted Macadamia Nuts

Kangaroo Fillets grilling

And finished

What's left of the Emu Sausage

We got back in time for the "Welcome" reception at the Conference center, which was a nondescript cocktail party. We connected with a few of the doctors on the tour we took and hung with them at the party. Most of the doctors were from Australia or New Zealand, but not originally.

I"ll try to describe Alice Springs, which is the only city of any size in central Australia. I had a lot of time to walk around and see what there was to see. We were cautioned not to walk after dark in Alice Springs but to take a taxi if you wanted to go to town. I'd encourage you to read this article I found in The Australain.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/destroyed-in-alice/story-fn59niix-1226008040782

The problems that are part of Aboriginal Australian life stem from the colonization of Australia in the late 1700's. The problems are very similar to what we have in the US in relation to the US Native American. The differences are that we've had 150 more years to work out the issues, not that anything has been worked out in the U.S.. Being in Central Australia is being in the epicenter of the dysfunction. From what I can gather, the unemployment and underemployment, are much of the problem, but there is also alcoholism and drug addiction that reeks havoc with the locals. There are "Town Camps" which are like our Reservations, terrible crime and violence happen in these places but local police do not have access so it's incumbent on the victim to come into Alice Springs to report a crime. This causes problems in the Camp, and the victim will often sit with the perpetrator at the jail to give comfort. Domestic violence is a huge problem in the Indigenous population, but culturally the women are ostracized when they return to the Camps so reporting is spotty at best. I have only the white perspective on the issues, I don't pretend to know both sides. Education is another real problem. There are schools, both private and public, but attendance once the children reach teen years is not a priority. Just like in the States, blame is aimed at the system itself. The curriculum is not geared to be culturally sensitive, they learn differently, they don't have computers at home, just going to school is not what the community values. So the gap widens and widens, and as reading/writing/computers skills are needed to perform even entry level jobs, they are left out of any hope of securing a job. This is where the drinking and drug taking take over and selling drugs or alcohol to get money starts. Some of the Town Camps are "dry" so you can make money selling bootleg "grog" in town.

1. The symbolic meaning of the flag colours (as stated by Harold Thomas) is: Black – represents the Aboriginal people of Australia. Yellow circle – represents the Sun, the giver of life and protector. Red – represents the red earth, the red ochre used in ceremonies andAboriginal peoples' spiritual relation to the land.

We noticed when we were walking in town to the conference that the Todd River, yes, this is the Todd River, that many Aboriginal people where hanging out in the river bed, which is all sand.

Todd River

1.                              
2.                    We saw the flag flown with the Australian Flag everywhere in Alice Springs. 
3. 
   

   

   
   

   In a 1967 referendum, over 90% of Australian voters agreed to change our Constitution to give the federal parliament the power to make laws in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and to allow for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be included in the census. (Wikipedia reference)
4. I would never claim that the Indigenous people of Australia didn't have many wrongs done to them. As late as the 1950's and 60's Aboriginal children were taken from their mothers legally and placed in homes with white families. This was thought to culturize them into being being more white or assimilated. This time is known here as the "Stolen Generation" and is believed to be the cause of many of the current issues. Until 1967 they were not included in the census.
5. http://www.nsdc.org.au/stolen-generations-history/
6. The US as well as Australia's history is tainted which is why seeing their current plight is so difficult. The population of Indigenous people is only about 3-4% of the 27,000,000 people who live here, the budget for reforms are $4.9 billion for this year.
7. http://minister.indigenous.gov.au/media/2015-05-12/government-continues-significant-reforms-indigenous-affairs
8. The Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, got into trouble early this year when he proposed closing some of the more remote communities. He spoke of empty schools, and heavy unemployment, with no hope of jobs anytime soon. He was vilified for these "insensitive remarks" with his critics stating the Aboriginals are connected to the land whether or not there were jobs and we should support them where ever they chose to live.  I guess if money is no object that might work, but their budget deficit is big and getting bigger and tough decisions will have to be made. I guess I should just try to understand both sides and not share my opinion.

Apparently this is a common thing for displaced locals to do. If you are "shamed" by your "Mob" (which is equivalent to tribe), by alcohol or drug use, you are no longer welcome at the Camp. so they congregate in the river bed and drink, and that causes issues with tourism and safety.  The conference John attended confronted some of these issues, much of the conference used the backdrop of Alice Springs to address medical and social issues facing the Aboriginal. At Alice Springs Hospital they combine cultural therapies with medical therapies. The conference had a Smoking ceremony during the opening session.

1. (A smoking ceremony is an ancient custom among IndigenousAustralians that involves burning various native plants to producesmoke, which is believed to have cleansing properties and the ability to ward off bad spirits.)
2. John felt that it was heavy on the cultural aspects and on rural medicine which is definitely what your practice is in Alice Springs. Alice Springs Hospital being the organizing group, it made sense to focus on the issues of the Aboringinal. But it was informative on things that you don't see in Bundaberg. There are some Aboriginals in Bundy but unfortunately many suffer from the social issues we saw in Alice Springs. All in all it was a good conference on many levels, and this gave us a way to see Uluru, a mere 5 hours away.

    Another aspect of this rural area is the need for medical retrievals via airplanes due to the  remoteness of the area. We flew up from Bundaberg with one of the ER doctors that does

a week of retrieval medicine every few months. The Royal Flying Doctors is an                 organization privately funded that organizes the flights to and from Alice Springs to where   ever the patient needs to go for treatment. The closest large medical center is Adelaide, which is 3 hours by plane from Alice Springs. They will fly patients into Alice Springs if complicated surgery isn't needed. They do field retrievals for bad car accidents, and they staff 1-2 doctors per shift everyday. It's a huge area of need here as the area between hospitals is so vast. The mining industry is a large supporter of the service, but you see bins with signs asking for donations in every mall and airport in Australia. Each flight is at least $1200 and possibly much more if they have to travel to Adelaide or Sydney. There isn't another way to get people to care that is faster. 

1. So, at 6am Wednesday morning we were collected at our hotel for the trip to Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock.
   
   
2.