A female doctor at a remote West Australian Aboriginal community has left in fear for her safety and nurses are also threatening to pull out after repeated attempts to break into their homes.
Multiple sources have told the ABC there has been an increase in attempted burglaries and other problems in the Warburton community, 920km north-east of Kalgoorlie, after the return of several people who had been charged with break and enter and stealing offences.
The nurses have been issued with walkie talkies and distress alarms.
Belinda McDonald has for the last four years been the only doctor living on the vast Ngaanyatjarra Lands, near the Northern Territory border.
She has been responsible for 12 communities sprawled across 250,000 square kilometres.
Ms McDonald said she made the decision to leave Warburton on Tuesday and temporarily base herself in another community.
“I wasn’t safe and I didn’t feel my daughter was safe,” Dr McDonald said.
“My house was broken into, with a large chain being broken on my back gate, and attempts to remove windows to get into my house,” she said.
“The week before I had been there, and people had been trying to get into my house and I was there.”
However Dr McDonald said she hoped to return to the community next year.
Ngaanyatjarra Health Service chief executive James Lamerton said four nurses on his staff based at Warburton had told him they wanted to go.
“What’s exacerbated the problem is that our nursing compound, we’re putting new duplexes in there, so the fence has been down for a little while,” Mr Lamerton said.
“So we’re getting our nurses harassed by attempted break-ins while they’re actually in the houses.
“Of course, that’s put stress on my staff and I’m just not prepared to accept that.”
‘The next step is violence’
Three police officers permanently assigned to Warburton’s multi-function station are understood to be doing everything they can but are struggling with limited resources in the 700-strong community.
Mr Lamerton said police regularly work more than 100 hours a week, and were at wits’ end.
“[Nurses] ring the police, and the police respond but the offenders disappear into the night and reappear,” he said.
“The police are very short staffed here, there are only three police officers, so they are under the pump as well.
“I hate to say it but the next step is violence and I just want to absolutely avoid my staff getting put in any situation where violence is a possibility. So we’re at a bit of an impasse.”
Mr Lamerton met with the nurses at Warburton on Tuesday and said he convinced them to stay after agreeing to the extra security measures and temporarily moved them into new accommodation.
“It does seem to be a deterrent if we have male members of staff here, so in the medium to longer term we’ll have to look at the mix of genders we have in the compound,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence we’re getting break-ins at the nursing compound and all of the people there are female.”
He said he wanted long-term strategies put in place with the community, police, the Ngaanyatjarra shire, and teaching staff “to make sure this stops”.
Dr McDonald said there was an escalating threat.
“It reflects the general health of the community, reflects the poverty in the community and the state of mental health in the community, and the drug use in the community and the release of paroled prisoners into the community,” she said.
Centrelink cuts causing community strain: Shire president
Ngaanyatjarraku Shire President Damian McLean said the level of violence in Warburton had fallen sharply, alcohol was very limited in the dry community and petrol sniffing had almost disappeared.
However, he said nurses should be able to live in security and much of the instability was caused by the fact that any one time 30 per cent of the community had their Centrelink benefits suspended, cancelled or were trying to reapply.
“The cost of that to a very poor area is extremely high, and the instability and the uncertainty it creates is very, very distressful and very difficult,” he said.
Mr Maclean said the isolation and lack of understanding of Centrelink obligations made it harder for people to comply.
“If you’re not literate, not numerate, you have a very limited use of English, you’re pretty much undocumented, those things start to become extremely difficult, particularly when the first office you can deal with in person is almost 1000km away,” he said.
The ABC understands officers at Warburton have long asked for extra permanent staff to be stationed there.
WA Police was contacted for comment.