My christmas - Dr Anne Wakatama dreams of a quiet Christmas

AS FAMILIES across the country gear up for an exciting, fun and hopefully happy festive season, Dr Anna Wakatama is simply hoping for a quiet and relatively uneventful Christmas this year.

She is one of many doctors across the country rostered to work on Christmas Day but with a slight difference – she will be on call to cover health services spanning more than 600 km2. 

As one of two GPs on duty at the Broken Hill base of the Royal Flying Doctors Service this year. Dr Wakatama is keeping her fingers crossed there will be no emergency call-outs.

If precedent is anything to go by she may well get her wish.

“It is usually not too bad – by Christmas Day people have generally arrived at where they want to go unless they are doing the mad dash, which I think is often dangerous,” she says.

“So the main things we see are things like children having accidents with new toys. However, Boxing Day is when people start to move again and is usually busier.

“[Generally on Christmas Day] we are taking remote consultations... [but] if a situation is happening somewhere requiring the doctor to go out then it is the on-duty doctor who arranges the aircraft to go out and collect the patient.”

Dr Wakatama said that after Boxing Day she will drive to the NSW Central Coast, where she plans to hold belated celebrations with family.