‘Stumpy’ deserved better
STUMPY Barratt, 70, died of a heart attack in the red dirt on the shoulder of the Barkly Highway between Mt Isa and Cloncurry on October 10.
He had been waiting 200 days to see a cardiologist in Townsville. He died on that desolate stretch of road that runs through the spinifex covered Selwyn Ranges.
The only witnesses to his passing were, in a case of twisted irony, a doctor and nurse who just happened to have been travelling behind him, his faithful dog Sheila and the constantly circling kite hawks above.
He’d been waiting nearly 29 weeks to see a doctor, a specialist in Townsville who might help him live, but he was never given an appointment. Mervyn ‘Stumpy’ Barrett, after taking a ‘turn’ in his car, drove to the side of the road and died. It shouldn’t have happened.
We understand for a host of reasons that people in country Australia have a shorter life span than people in the cities, but Stumpy’s death brought this disparity into even sharper focus. Stumpy didn’t die in a car accident or have a horse or a quadbike roll over him out on a station.
He didn’t die from undiagnosed diabetes or from a stroke. He died because the system let him down.
The thing is we all know a Stumpy Barratt. If we don’t know them well, we know them well enough to nod to as we pass in thestreet.
They are the hard-working quiet ones who go along with the system and who don’t want to cause a fuss.
They’ve never asked for anything for free in their life and they’ve never received it. Everything they’ve got they workedfor.
Stumpy Barrett in true-blue, knockabout style had the Fourex man tattooed on the bicep of his left arm and wore the badgeon his hat.
He was a champion athlete in his hometown of Ayr and played on the wing for the Queensland U15 rugby league side.
He lost his dominant left hand to a mincing machine when a 15 year old apprentice butcher and had to learn to do everythingover with his right hand.
He was in his 50th year of working for Roadtek when he died. That’s the sort of bloke he was.
If you drove the Flinders and Barkly
Highways often enough, chances are you would have passed him operating a roller or awater truck.
He’d be the bloke sitting up there in the cowboy hat giving you the casual Aussie outback, raised forefinger wave.
Who decided somewhere along the line that Stumpy Barratt, despite needing to urgently see a heart specialist, could wait andwait and wait to see the one person who could prolong his life?
What makes an outstanding bush doctor is their ability to diagnose their often taciturn patients.
They have to understand that these people have been self-reliant all of their lives and are not used to asking for help. Someeven see going to a doctor as a sign of weakness.
They can feel intimidated about having to be in a doctor’s rooms and feel uncomfortable about having to open up about theirpersonal wellbeing.
A good bush doctor understands this and knows that as well as being a topnotch physician, he or she has to be a bit of amind reader and know how to use these insights to get help to people who otherwise won’t ask for it, let alone kick up a fuss.people like Stumpy.
Somewhere along the line the lights went out and the health system failed Stumpy Barratt.