Sarah Brown AM

Pride of the Purple House

As founding chief executive officer of the ground-breaking Indigenous healthcare service the Purple House, Sarah Brown could recount many achievements from over the past 17 years. Delivering some 8000 dialysis treatments annually in 18 remote communities across remote Australia is life-saving in and of itself, and she is justly proud of the organisation's hard-working all-Indigenous board and team of dedicated workers and volunteers.

"Our aim has always been to respect relationships, culture and connection in the health and wellbeing of our patients," Sarah says."Many had been forced off their country to missions and government settlements, and had fought really hard to return, but were being forced off their land again, to Alice Springs to be on dialysis three times a week if they wanted to survive kidney disease. It was tearing families and communities apart. We were determined, where possible, to provide treatment on country."

It's telling then that Sarah cites a 2018 government decision, inspired by the Purple House model, as perhaps its greatest breakthrough - Medicare listing remote haemodialysis for rebate.

"This was a real game-changer for us because it recognised what Indigenous communities wanted," Sarah says. "Medicare item numbers don't disappear with a Prime Minister; they are there for the long haul and give communities some certainty. It also went a long way to putting our organisation on a sustainable footing for the future, by guaranteeing clinics an income stream based on the number of people treated."

A former bush nurse, who completed a Diploma in Health Science (Nursing), Graduate Diploma in Educational Studies (Aboriginal Education) and Masters in Nursing at UNE, Sarah Brown has always played the long game.

She had come to the attention of a group of Pintupi-Luritja leaders in the early 1990s while helping to teach Aboriginal health workers in the Northern Territory -"That was a laugh; they taught me far more than I could teach them".

One in five Indigenous adults show symptoms of chronic kidney disease, and Indigenous Australians are almost three times more likely to die from the condition than non-Indigenous Australians. The elders were dismayed by the high mortality rates and dislocation of families during dialysis treatment. They wanted it delivered on country.

An auction of Indigenous artworks at the Art Gallery of NSW raised $1 million to launch the Western Desert Nganampa Walytja Palyantjaku Tjutaku Aboriginal Corporation (better known as the Purple House) and Sarah was soon working out of a corner of her Alice Springs lounge room to help make the dream of remote dialysis a reality.

"Despite working as a bush nurse I had never seen a dialysis machine in my life, but I had visited Kintore (where they wanted the first dialysis machine installed) and knew that people would have a big challenge ahead," says Sarah. But pride and confidence in the project soon grew."People finally had some hope; they were not poor old dialysis patients who had to move to town and live on someone else's country anymore," Sarah says. "It was a fantastic opportunity to work with people who were living in poverty but had really clear ideas about who they were and what they wanted for their families and their future."

In almost two decades, the Purple House has done much to address the renal failure epidemic in Indigenous communities across three states and is about to launch its second mobile dialysis truck. Founded on family (Walytja), country (Ngurra) and compassion (Kuunyi), the model turned traditional Indigenous health delivery on its head. Administered by a board of 12 Pintupi-Luritja directors, it provides much more than medical treatment: aged care advice, healthy meals, allied health support, NDIS services, a bush medicine social enterprise and companionship are all part of the service.

While she claims she is "much better at making cups of tea and having a chat", Sarah is clearly a driving force behind "the Starship Purple House".

"We've had some terrible times over the years, when we thought we would not find the resources to keep going, when we had to advocate and push and be complete ratbags to help people survive," Sarah says.

"But you walk in here (the Alice Springs headquarters, which hosts a dialysis and GP clinic) sometimes and it's like we're having a party, not like people have end-stage renal failure. I’m useless at taking holidays, because I suffer from extreme fear of missing out. I couldn't imagine doing anything else."

However, it's not always easy. "Our care is about ensuring quality of life, and sometimes that involves stopping dialysis and helping people to die on country with the people they love around them," Sarah says. "You build very close relationships with patients who become part of your family - and sometimes you lose them. There are still people I miss terribly, who fought hard for dialysis on their country.

"But my work has given me huge faith in humanity, about the importance of doing the best for each other. Things will get better, gaps will close, but a lot of that will be because of the resilience, resourcefulness and compassion of Aboriginal people."

They are full of praise for Sarah, too. In November 2017, Purple House directors wrote that "her heart is in the Purple House" and "for the people", while statistics attest to her unique approach: Central Australia has gone from having the worst to the best survival rates for renal disease in Australia. Along the way, the Australian Financial Review named Sarah one of its BOSS True Leaders.

"I do show people my left buttock every now and then and ask them to check my Best Before Date," she says. "Hopefully, someone will tap me on the shoulder and tell me it's time to roll up my swag if I go completely bonkers, but I think there are advantages to having someone who has chucked their lot in with this mob and doesn't give up."

While 2020 has hardly gone to plan, Sarah did receive an Order of Australia Medal for "her significant service to community health, remote nursing and Indigenous communities" and says the team is looking forward to a big Purple House 21st birthday bash next year at the Art Gallery of NSW. "It's been a tough year," she says. "We've had to adapt our model in order to keep people safe. Some things have been slowed down and we've pushed ahead with other things that really matter, which has been looking after each other and doing the best we can with what we've got. That's always been the motto of the Purple House."

Congratulations Sarah Brown, AM, one of our 2020 UNE Distinguished Alumni Award winners.