A life of love and care
PIONEERING Katherine nursing sister Dorothy Morris has died in Katherine. She was 86.
The mother of eight had her family at her bedside when she passed away at Katherine Hospital on December 20 after a long illness.
One of the town’s most recognisable figures, especially when riding her bike with dog Cecil to the Katherine pool for her customary 15 laps, Mrs Morris was often greeted with ‘‘Hello Sister Morris or Dot with the Lot’’ when townsfolk spotted her.
Because that is what she was. A loving and caring person who would do anything for the people of Katherine.
Her midwifery skills in the years between 1966 and the mid-1980s delivered most of the population of the town, in conjunction with respected doctors Jim Scattini and the late Peter Short.
Mrs Morris nursed at Papunya and Amoonguna in Central Australia at community clinics before the move to Katherine.
Her tales of nursing in the Katherine region were legendary. Locals still talk of the time Mrs Morris drove in an ambulance with driver Jack Roney to the home of the MacFarlane family on Moroak Station in the Roper River region.
Blocked by floodwaters on the way to the homestead, she joined Mr Roney on a long trek in knee-deep water with the aid of torchlight to the MacFarlane home only to discover the child had already been delivered.
Or rowing the boat across flooded creeks in the wet season from Clarence Station 20km north of the town be- fore linking up with a motor vehicle on the other side so she could work the midnight to 8am shift at the hospital.
And the time in 1975 when her oldest son, Grey, was accidentally shot in the arm while hunting and she refused entry to the woman’s ward until discovering to her horror a shooting had occurred and to her own son.
A frantic request to resident Indian doctor Sebbiah was met with surgery to repair gunpowder burns.
There were tragedies, including the loss of her second-oldest son, Paul, to a motor vehicle accident in 1985 and the death of husband Ted in 1999.
But there was always a smile and requests for what she could do to better the lives of the people of Katherine and her own family, even with the constant demands of nursing and very little sleep.
Dorothy Morris is survived by her children Sally, Grey, Cathy, Elizabeth, Helen, Frank and Mary, and grandchildren Jessica, Sarah, Dane, Trent, Rachel, Greg, Max and Lily.