Callous treatment of sex-assault victim
18.08.2010
COMMENT.
By: Tony Koch
IN February 2008, an experienced 28-year-old remote area nurse from Sydney was sent to Mabuiag Island in the Torres Strait. There is no police officer or doctor on the island. She was on her own.
On arrival, she reported to her employer, Queensland Health, that the clinic was filthy, had no running water and no gas for the stove, no airconditioning, intermittent power and there was no security for her building.
She said the flat in which she was expected to live above the clinic was filthy, ``with mould and fungus growing everywhere, chewing gum in blinds, used ear-sticks in blinds and cupboards, stove covered with grease, bed bugs . . . no water to wash with or flush toilets, security screen door hanging from its hinges, no airconditioning and no curtains on the bedroom or bathroom''.
The bureaucrats ignored her pleas. Soon afterwards, her flat was broken into as she slept, and she was raped.
Some weeks before the attack, a man on the island died of a suspected heart attack and the nurse asked that his body be taken by helicopter to Thursday Island for post-mortem checking, but the department refused because of the cost.
She had to put up with the body on the floor of her clinic for three days, each day using a boat bilge pump to get rid of melted ice and leaking body fluids, before the body was eventually taken away because she threatened to bury it.
It is difficult to believe that anyone, let alone a female public servant working alone in a remote locality, could be treated with such heartlessness.
The nurse has not been able to work since and is involved in a legal battle to get compensation to allow her to get on with her life.
It defies belief she has to fight for this.
If ever there was a clear-cut case where a government should go on bended knees and beg forgiveness, this is it.
