By Casey Neill
CLARE Mitchell is dedicating her life to improving health care for the world’s poorest people.
The 35-year-old Tecoma nurse has already helped transform a substandard Solomon Islands hospital, but has much more in her sights.
Ms Mitchell first visited the Solomons in April last year with Interplast, which takes plastic surgeons, nurses and anaesthetists to developing countries.
She and surgeon Guy Dowling found a remote clinic in Marau, on Guadalcanal, which services 10,000 people.
“We decided it wouldn’t take much to fix what was then a grass hut they were operating out of, into a functioning clinic,” she said.
Ms Mitchell set her sights on a sink, solar panels, fly screens, a toilet and shower.
“There was just nothing, there were no amenities,” she said.
She returned with Mr Dowling in December, found a resort owner willing to oversee the project, hired a local builder and a project manager.
They fundraised and poured in thousands of dollars from their own pockets. It was finished by August.
“It was amazing, I was just blown away,” she said.
“They put a tin roof on it, they had a water tank installed and they built a maternity building from scratch.
“When we went over the second time, the whole thing was being held up by bamboo poles, because the roof kept caving in.”
Mr Dowling died suddenly earlier this year.
“He didn’t get to see it finished, and he would have really loved to. It was really special,” Ms Mitchell said.
She said their efforts have made a big difference. “But in the back of your mind there’s always ‘it would be great if we could get more mosquito nets, it would be great if we could…’. There’s just so much more that needs to be done,” she said.
“It’s just a tiny little microscopic spec in a massive, huge problem that is world health.”
The mother of two wants others to do their bit.
“We seem to have these blinkers on. We don’t see the rest of the world. Maybe the problem’s too big and people can’t cope,” she said.
“I’m so passionate about it and I’ll dedicate the rest of my life to it.
“There’s a wonderful saying that if every person on the planet took 10 per cent of their income and put it towards solving world poverty, there wouldn’t be an issue.
“That’s what I try to live by.”
She’ll take her daughters on a trip to Cambodia and Laos next year.
“They might volunteer at an orphanage and we’ve got a sponsor child over there so we’ll visit that child,” she said.
“At the moment, I’m going to focus on educating them, and when they’re grown up, what I’d ultimately like to do is work for some sort of organisation which does this on a permanent basis.”
She would also like to further the company she started, Australasian Remote Community Health Assistance (ARCHA).
“Maybe we could do some work in the Northern Territory, but I don’t know yet,” she said.
Ms Mitchell wants to do more for the Solomons.
“It’s really close to home and yet there are women giving birth over there on the floor of their hut in their villages because the health clinics have closed,” she said.
“They’re two hours and 45 minutes away from the eighth richest per capita country on earth.”
