Rural health — it’s a dog’s life

I arrived in a dusty hot town to start a locum, and was greeted effusively by the resident dog, an enormous part-Alsatian. We became instant friends, but I realised, as he scattered the waiting-room patients the next morning, that this dog was not friends with everyone. He used his Houdini talents to escape and accompany me everywhere, and caused consternation when I entered the High Dependency Unit of the local hospital. He got into the hospital by hurling himself at the front glass doors. When I went for my evening walks, he amused himself by attacking the hubcaps of passing cars.

His reputation was legendary — he had attacked every citizen of the small town, and regularly bailed up elderly ladies in their backyard dunnies. Pedestrians all carried stout sticks, and small children wore rubber boots if they wished to play in the park. Dr X, his owner, had been approached by the police, the dog-catcher, a deputation of citizens, even by the Mayor, but he had declared to everyone that if his dog came to harm, he would leave town — and that was that!

I walked through the park one hot dry evening, trying to pretend that the dog had nothing to do with me. He did his usual thing — ran up to a small boy and bit him on the calf of his rubber boot. The boy gave a small scream, and went on playing. An elderly man rose from one of the seats, his stick held in front of him. The dog snarled obligingly.

“That dog of yours . . .” he started. “Oh no, not my dog!” I protested. “That dog just shows you what is wrong with health services in country New South Wales. We have got to put up with that dog in order to keep our doctor in the town. If the doctor goes, the hospital goes, the chemist goes, and we are left with nothing. NOTHING!”

The dog gave a hideous yellow grin. He had quite a sense of humour. I had already noticed his proclivity to break into the consulting room when a Pap smear was in progress.

“Yeah” said the receptionist the next day. “Dr X will leave town if they try to poison his dog again. They shouldn’ta thrown them 1080 baits over the back fence.”

I was soon gone and, I suppose, forgotten, but a drug rep told me that about a year later the dog had died under mysterious circumstances. Dr X had removed himself and his family instantly to the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney.