Returning to Perth
Abstract
In April 2015, I was warmly welcomed to Perth, to speak at the MCaFHNA conference. I was struck by the dynamism and youth of the population - building, expansion and energy everywhere! When I first visited Perth in 2004, there was talk of the population of Western Australia passing the one-million mark - and the taxi driver collecting me from the airport this year told me the population had just passed two million. What a lot of work that means for child and family health nurses! I learned a new term - the 'FIFO' fathers, who Fly In for weekend trips home, then Fly Out, back to work in the mines responsible for much of this massive expansion. Again, I thought of all the family health needs that lifestyle generates and the anxiety should such insecure employment fail. Are services keeping up with need? Well, as far as they ever do, it seems, and variably across Australia as in the UK.