Growing up on Thursday Island Deidree Whap was mesmerised by her next door neighbours.
Her house, where she lived with her mother and siblings, was next door to the ambulance station.
There’s one memory that sticks in her head, when she was peeking over the fence and was approached by one of the staff there.
“I was focusing on the building next door and the old superintendent asked, do you want to come over and have a look at what we do,” Ms Whap told the Point.
“That was when I was still at school so that got my attention.”
Deidree Whap was born on Thursday Island and raised by her mother and grandmother. Source: Supplied / Deidree Whap
A lot of the houses didn’t have street numbers, so ambulances would have to be flagged down, and there were communications and language barriers to grapple with too.
“Back then it was hard for people to ring the ambulance with English being maybe their third language, people were finding it hard to ring and give their words to what they were going through,” she said.
“ It would be only in an emergency that people would ring and it would be from their landline directly to the ambulance station.
“Now that’s changed, everyone has to ring triple zero."
Deidree Whap loves getting out into her community through her work Source: NITV
Deidree is proud of the accolade, but even prouder that she gets to work in her home town and care for her own community.
“I’m the link between my community and the Queensland Ambulance Service and that was my dream and my goal,” she said.
"If you have a goal you want to make sure that you fulfil it before you call it a day."
A lot has changed in the time Aunty Deidree has been working in the Queensland Ambulance Service.
Now she’s a field officer, and has worked hard to make sure her people are getting culturally safe care from each of the ambulance officers on Thursday Island.
“I think everyone knows respect, but it’s just clarifying the way when you have an Indigenous patient on the stretcher, it’s a different way to speak to them,” she said.
“If they’ve got two non-Indigenous staff coming to them, if the staff are aware of how to handle or speak to this patient they’ll be able to respond right and the patient will be able to respond back in a safe way.”
Remoteness a challenge
But there are still plenty of challenges keeping paramedics on their toes throughout the Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula Area.
“The challenge is the remoteness,” Aunty Deidree said.
“Just to bring a patient out, just the coordination of it, the weather and if you’re flying at night it’s risky.
“You have to make sure the equipment is all ready and your training is up to date and that’s before you can even do patient care or save someone from a boat or fly down to the Cape and try to find somebody.
“[Sometimes] you are walking for 30 kilometres before you can get to the patient, how are you going to carry the patient to where the chopper has landed.”
Deidree Whap (centre) started in the QAS in 1989. Source: Supplied / Deidree Whap
Local mental health worker Marsat Ketchell has known Deidree for more than 20 years.
He said being able to bring local knowledge to the job is incredibly important.
“Language is a big thing, and understanding tradition and culture and be able to mesh that into the clinical aspects of our work, that’s vital for the wellness of the community as a whole,” he said.
A well-loved community member
Working within the community himself, he said he knows Aunty Deidree is well respected on Thursday Island.
“We’ve always been staying in touch and watching out for each other and our own well being,” he said.
“I’ve always had heaps of wrap for Deidree. I've never heard anything bad said about her in the community because I listen to the crowd a lot."
Deidree Whap says plenty has changed in the 30 years she has been a paramedic. Source: Supplied / Deidree Whap
“It’s just one of those things, I say hello to everybody,” she said.
“I like to walk around and visit people. I make it my business sometimes to say can I attend to this or can I attend to that.
“I’m making a calendar of all the events to give to our staff members so they’re aware and can go and engage in community events.”
Despite the challenges, Aunty Deidree’s love for the job has not dwindled.
She told The Point she has her ways of staying strong when she has to respond to difficult incidents.
“You focus on the job and it’s a good debrief after that and that really brings you back down to the ground,” she said.
“We as a group are very close-knit at the QAS.
“For myself I pray and I go down to the beach and sit and listen to the waves .”
