Book Reviews
In our own right: Black Australian nurses stories
Sally Goold and Kerrynne Liddle (eds)
ISBN: 0-9757422-2-2 2007 120 pages eContentmanagement Pty Ltd
Lesley Barclay
Institute of Advanced Studies, Charles Darwin University, NT
This was supposed to be a simple task: a book review for a journal. I was asked, I believe, because I share a small part of these stories. I was a nurse and a contemporary of some of these authors in the 1960s and early 70s. However, reading the stories I was struck by the enormity of the task. How can a non-Aboriginal Australian, who lives in the same world as these women and men, presume to comment on this book? The other challenge I face in my own academic work is a growing reluctance to reduce other people's experience through interpretation, and an increasing enthusiasm for the power of narrative or story. For stories to yield their power, however, requires they be situated. In this case the stories are ‘situated’ in a preface written by Sally Goold OAM who, probably more than any other single nurse, has done the most for Aboriginal nurses and nursing within the mainstream of the profession.
The book is disturbing, as it should be. Twenty-three Indigenous Australian nurses from all over the Australian mainland, Tasmania and the Torres Strait tell their stories. Some are short, some longer, but all describe their triumph in becoming professional nurses. This is the joy of the book: hearing the voices of people who persevered and succeeded despite almost being buried in a mire of institutionalised racism and disadvantage. Filtered through the memories of the successful people the narrators have become, I suspect many more painful and humiliating moments remain hidden. These 23 are extraordinary people, whose attainments are remarkable, and measured in the number of awards and honours they share. Other characteristics they share include their capacity for, and acceptance of, leadership. This is expressed in work for their people, services they helped develop, and their role in the education and mentoring of others. However, the stories also illuminate why the proportion of Aboriginal professionals in Australia is so low, and the magnitude of persistence and determination required to deal with political, institutional, educational and attitudinal barriers.
Key themes weave throughout the narratives. One compelling theme is the supportive family, friends and mentors who counteract the racist attitudes and hurtful comments of some of the non-Aboriginal staff and of patients with whom the narrators had to deal. The enormous pressure on the nurses to succeed, and prove themselves, and the strong discipline that was part of the culture of the profession and seen as ‘character building’, appears part of their success. Lowitja O’Donoghue ‘had to have the shiniest shoes, the whitest uniform, and absolutely everything in its place’. Sally Goold as the first in her family to ‘do something’, felt she always had to ‘walk the extra mile’, while Carmen Parter reveals her ‘need to work ten times harder than a non-Aboriginal person so as to gain the recognition and experience necessary to be successful in society’. Above all the stories are about the power of education and life-long learning to transform and make meaningful any person’s life.
Sally Goold’s own story is included in the collection and demonstrates the courage and resilience necessary to succeed as an Aboriginal professional. She was supported by a loving and stable family, as were some of the other nurses who have contributed to this book. Not all were as fortunate however, with other authors describing their personal horrors of the stolen generation and much family distress and disruption as a result of white Australian policy and actions. Sadie Canning, for example, tells of her traditional Aboriginal birth in Western Australia, her family's attempts to avoid authority, and their fear of the people who eventually succeeded in removing her from her parents. She was then cared for by Mission staff who, in this case, were kind and provided the opportunity to be trained as a nurse. This was the beginning of a number of certificates in nursing, eventual employment as a triple certificated nurse, and the wearing of the veil symbolising her attainments. Canning describes working as a professional in segregated hospitals where her own people were treated as second class, and how she began her professional life as a nurse also needing to be an advocate for better treatment for Aboriginal patients.
Roz Pierce writes powerfully and openly of racism and injustice, relationship problems and violence in her family, and her own heavy drinking. She describes the effort she put into getting her life ‘back on track’, and finding satisfaction and professional fulfilment in her ultimate career as a sexual health nurse. Other authors, such as Faye Ryan, went back to education as mature adults with the multiple responsibilities other mature age students face. Their ‘hunger’ for this attainment, and their great efforts to succeed as nurses and contribute through nursing, is very strong across many other stories also.
Lowitja O’Donohue is probably better known than most of the other writers in the book because of her major contribution to Australian public life. Her story presents another side of her life, that of her profession as a nurse. Her origins are similar in many ways to some of the other older contributors. She speaks of experiencing desperate unkindness as a child in a Mission that, consistent with the time, tried to rid the children of their Aboriginality through punishment and threat. As with some others in the book, Lowitjja worked with opportunities and negotiated her way around blockages put in her path. As a professional and social history, In Our Own Right is bald and vivid. The book has a capacity to move, engender guilt, sorrow, and admiration at the courage and achievements of these nurses: who despite all the odds followed that dream to become a nurse. The task for its readers is to listen carefully and then change this country and the nursing profession so that it is more flexible and open to including in its ranks women and men from a range of backgrounds and with differing learning needs.
This book would benefit any professional group or educational institution trying to open its doors to increased Aboriginal representation. At a personal level I would like to have copies to give to people I meet who still exhibit racial prejudice and imagine that this country actually provides equal opportunity for all its people. The book explains why professional representation of Aboriginal leadership in nursing is so sparse. I imagine the lessons are generalisable to other Aboriginal men and women who, unlike those in this book, were unable to make the superhuman efforts required to succeed.
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