Dr Mary Fortune - TV programmes in the UK

Hi All

I don't know whether people have been watching the 3-part BBC TV series about Dr Fortune's recent 3-month spell at OVAHS, which is based in Kununurra, up in the North of Western Australia. 

It is an excellent 3-part documentary that is currently available on BBC iPlayer under the extremely trite title of "Doctor Fortune's Australian Casebook."  (I suppose the Beeb think this is witty because one's Granny might remember the "Doctor Finlay's Casebook" series, which is as old as the hills and I'm not sure whether it was even made in the days of colour TV.)

Dr Mary Fortune is a Scottish GP from Highland Scotland somewhere.

http://www.highland-news.co.uk/Home/Entertainment/TV/View-from-Amer...

In 2010, she spent 3 months in Kununurra with OVAHS, which stands for Ord Valley Aboriginal Health Service:

http://www.ovahs.org.au/home.html

I've been shocked by the series, frankly, so I'm not surprised that Dr Fortune was often in tears.   I don't even have a medical background so although I had heard of Rheumatic Fever. I don't really know anything about it.  It is a disease that used to be rife in the UK until the slum clearance programme from the 1920s to the 1960s eradicated it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheumatic_fever

Apparently, the appalling living conditions of far, far too many of the Aboriginal people in Australia means that this disease is still rife in Outback Australia.   It can cause heart-failure, I think it can cause kidney-failure as well and the upshot is that the life-expectancy of Indigenous Australians is much lower than it should be.

It was all very well Kevin Rudd strutting about on TV apologising to the Aboriginals for their "stolen generation" but the Australian Government is actually committing genocide, even to this day.  That is appalling, in my view.

The series is on BBC iPlayer at the moment and all 3 episodes are still available, though I don't know how long for.   I do urge people to watch it if you have not already seen it. 

Feeling guilty and humbled.

Gill