Island Nurses

Book excerpt: Leonie Howie and Adele Robertson live and work on remote Great Barrier Island-so called because it faces the full brunt of the wild Pacific weather and acts as a barrier for the mainland about 100 kilometres away. With a population of about 1000, no reticulated electricity, no ATM machine, no street lights and one pub, this is a wildly beautiful place. It has a long history of farming, whaling and fishing, and the people who live here are a resilient lot, proud of their community. Midwifery and nursing on a remote island bring a wide range of dramas and emergencies, and here Adele and Leonie share the islanders' stories-sometimes tragic, sometimes happy, sometimes funny-from over 30 years of challenging yet uplifting work.