May
4
2012
We are glued to coverage of the French presidential elections and each morning French-Australian husband Olivier takes himself into the lounge to watch the French news on SBS at 10:20am.
He is a Sarkozy man and cannot fathom why the French people would want to change such an outstanding president. He believes France is in better shape because ofNicvolas Sarkozy’s right-wing policies which, over the past five years, triggered rounds of strikes by French workers furious at industrial reforms. They were incensed, particularly, at raising the retirement age to 62. Many unrealistic social benefits have been wound back in Sarkozy’s bid to drag France into the 21st century.
On the eve of the crucial second round of the elections, forecasters believe a French Revolution is under way and it looks likely that France will swing to the Left, reject their dynamic president of the past five years and elect a socialist president, Francois Hollande.
The masses in France did not appreciate how Sarkozy initially wallowed in his public image of a wealthy president – despite his aristocratic Hungarian immigrant parentage. And despite French culture’s love affair with luxury labels, Mr Sarkozy did not endear himself to the people with his Rolex watch, Aviator sunglasses and affluent jet-setting lifestyle. Then he married a former supermodel turned singer, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, after a whirlpool romance, but she is still not liked by the French people despite having produced a daughter, Guilia, into the Elysses Palace. Poor Carla has been an exceptional First Lady, not having put a foot wrong, but has failed to win the French people’s hearts.
However, if the pundits are correct this weekend, the people want and will vote for socialist Hollande, who wears rimless glasses and presents himself as “Monsieur Normal,’’ a quiet unassuming fellow, who has never held a portfolio.
This is unfolding against the backdrop of a worsening European situation and a France where the Islamic population numbers about 15 per cent. The big unknown is how the French Muslims will vote, given that voting is not compulsory. The anti-immigration, anti-Islam policy of candidate Marine Le Pen gained her 18 per cent of the first round of elections, as French people feel threatened by the impact of Islamic culture on the French way of life. Commentators and political analysts reckon Sarkozy will need to garner the vast majority of Le Pen’s voters in the second round to retain office.
Much is at stake because Hollande wants to lower the retirement age and create thousands of public sector jobs for French people and for his part Sarkozy is pointing to the Greek tragedy as the result of such drastic moves in these times.
So, here in Australia, tomorrow Olivier will travel to Alliance Francaise (health permitting) along with other South Australian French citizens to vote for the candidate they think France needs to continue the groundwork Sarkozy. Whatever ctiticism is levelled at him, Sarkozy has forged strong ties with Germany and the UK and presented France as a senior player in keeping Europe’s economy from collapse.
May
3
2012
Australia’s first professor of palliative
care originally set out in the world to become a medical missionary. But life and
fate had other ideas, as SAMELA HARRIS
reports on the man some people call…
* * *
IT’S as if an aura of serenity surrounds him. When Professor Ian
Maddocks steps into a room, a sense of calm descends.
It’s not just that he relieves suffering. He gives also a gentle
spirituality which has led some, whose lives he has touched, to
describe him as a “living saint”.
Professor Maddocks, the just-retired chief of Daw House Hospice, at
Daw Park, is Australia’s first and pre-eminent professor of palliative
care.
He lives among the dying and the grieving. It is a world which has
chosen him, as much as he has chosen it. Life takes circuitous paths
and Professor Maddocks did not set out to become an urban death
doctor.
He set out to become a Third World Presbyterian medical missionary.
With youthful bravado, he studied medicine and theology
simultaneously, forsaking the intellectual stimuli of the former only
when the time demands of clinical medicine became overwhelming.
Completing medicine, the next crunch came with the revelation that
medical missionary postings were hard to come by. The hospital in
Korea closed after the Korean War and the New Hebrides hospital was
fully staffed.
So Professor Maddocks headed for Papua New Guinea and the medical
school in Port Moresby. Fourteen years later, he left PNG a changed
man.
Working with the local people had not been enough for Maddocks and his
family. They left the Port Moresby expatriate dwellings and moved into
a Papuan village, to live in a house on stilts over the water where
mother, father and three children bunked down in one room, where a
bucket served as a shower and where the toilet flushed into the sea.
Professor Maddocks was delivering sermons as well as teaching and
practising medicine, but his feelings towards the Church and its
concept of doing good were undermined by the influences of the ancient
indigenous beliefs.
He learnt about ancestor spirits, the power of sorcery, using
dreaming, the attribution of mortal blame for sickness and the way in
which the Papuan families worked things through as a group.
These ancient systems were health-promoting and made him “more
accepting of different views of things and less sure of what I was
doing there myself”.
These influences have flowed on through the professor’s life. His is
an approach of gentle tolerance. He makes no judgments on people and
their beliefs. He believes in listening to what other people know.
When PNG was about to become independent, in 1974, the Maddocks family
returned to Australia with a group of fellow expats and, with another
family, set up in North Adelaide as an experimental family commune.
For 31/2 years, the group, with six children between them, thrived,
living, working and endlessly discussing things together. They had no
television and no car. “We’d go out to visit and there would be 12
bicycles heading up Glen Osmond Rd quite a caravanserai,” recalls
Professor Maddocks.
He perceives the experiment as “a useful experience”. “We were
reminded quite often about how much time you have to give to
interaction,” he says. “You can’t be crisp and quick if you are
trying to manage a community of people. There was a lot of talk,
resolutions and different ideas.” He then was working a private
practice with his counsellor wife, Diana, and teaching fifth-year
medicine at Flinders.
Then he read an article in the Guardian Weekly which was to throw new
purpose into his life. It was an account by Victor Salsa of his
daughter’s dying in a hospice near Oxford, in the United Kingdom.
“The thing which compelled me was that the young woman dying of
cancer had been able to look after her parents as they went through
the awful prospect of losing her,” he reflects.
He concluded that it was the good hospice environment, the medical and
emotional support, which had made the difference. He took the idea to
the Flinders Medical Centre’s administration, suggesting that they set
up some sort of a hospice in the grounds.
A committee was formed. The Anti-Cancer Foundation, loss and grief
counsellors, District Nursing and GPs came together and the Southern
Hospice Program emerged. It started slowly assigning cancer-ward
nurses to work on palliative care, and the Health Commission allocated
sessions from an anaesthetist.
“Gradually we got more and more,” says Professor Maddocks. “We did
a study on the gaps in care and from that we wrote a submission for
the establishment of a hospice here. The old TB hospital, Killara, was
contemplating a hospice, too, so we liaised. By the middle of the
1980s, we were a team of about five people. In 1987 came the
opportunity to create a chair in palliative care.
“Half-joking, I said I would not mind the job if it gave me a
secretary. At the time, I was not in a salaried position.
“I was only paid when I was working and I was involved in Physicians
Against Nuclear War, going to conferences and executive meetings and
always without income when I was away. So I applied for the chair.
There was not much competition, none. All I could show was that I was
a fairly wide-ranging physician and I had an interest in this area.”
That was 10 years ago. Daw House, a handsome old building with modern
additions, set in a bird heaven of park-like grounds, now is a
respected institution of compassionate caring, albeit engaged in an
emergency appeal for funding. Fragrant oils subtly scent the air, the
sun streams into a lush little enclosed courtyard affectionately known
as “Hayman Island”.
Kind staff tend to a steady turnover of dying in the 15 beds, while
outreach staff visit patients in their homes, managing their pain and
monitoring their wellbeing. The hospice’s protective wings spread out
over such an expanse of the southern suburbs that Professor Maddocks
hopes that expansion will lead to a unit at Noarlunga Hospital.
Throughout the hospice, which abuts the sprawling Repat Hospital, he
is known simply and in quite quiet reverence as “The Professor”. He
is never far from his people’s needs this tall, gentle, wise man with
his serene touch.
Professor Maddocks was 56 when he was appointed to the chair of
palliative care. He realises that few people have such chances at that
time of life.
He says it has been “fun”, then changes his choice of word to
“joy”.
“It is an area which is really serious and filled with sadness and
loss,” he says. “But the staff make a lot of support.” Special
people are attracted to palliative-care work people who can reach out
into the discomforts of others. “They are a very nice group of people
and they look after each other, too,” he says. “If I am having a
hard time, someone is likely to hug me or ask me if I am okay. People
working in this area feel useful; their attention and intuitions are
able to operate fairly freely.
“They are not trying to apply clever recipes and do clever procedures
that people just have to accept. It is much more interactive. People
therefore respond very warmly; they are grateful for the interest,
skills and attitude staff bring to this kind of work, so they feed
back very nice things to them.”
Professor Maddocks travels widely, sharing learnings on palliative
care, running workshops, lecturing in such places as Korea, Mongolia,
China, Japan, Burma, Malaysia and the Philippines.
He no longer actively practises any form of religion. “Spirituality
is a part of what you do when trying to help people to find meaning in
an experience, a crisis. Sometimes you are not using a spiritual
vocabulary but are touching on things which are very important to
people and ought to be more spiritual,” he says.
Professor Maddocks sees death not with a bright light at the end of a
tunnel but as “a physical and intellectual closure”. But the dead
remain connected to the living in thoughts and genes.
“When patients are dying and their families talk about meeting them
at the other end, I have sympathy for that,” he says. “What is so
absolutely marvellous is that you don’t know. There is an excitement
about it. It preserves a sense of wonder and awe. I am in awe of
death.
“It’s an extraordinary experience to watch someone quietly stop. You
wonder what will be one’s death and hope you do it well and have
courage. I hope I am programmed to accept it.
(Samela’s article has been reproduced courtesy of The Advertiser.)
April
24
2012
The prestigious South Australian Women of the Year lunch at Ayers House today had an emotional element when cancer researcher Dr Michelle Lee received a $4000 cheque to continue her research into bone cancer. She will leave soon to spend time in Hong Kong to study holistic treatment methods for the painful life-limiting cancer. The event was held at Henry’s Brasserie within the historic Ayers House and among the many eminent women who attended were the Honorable Jing Lee, MLC, and renowned philanthropists Pamela Wall and Maria Kenda. Also among the eminent cross-section of Adelaide’s well-known women were Audrey Stern, Claudine Butterworth, Kali Hunter and Annette Wyllie-Smith. An elegant, pregnant fashion designer Liza Emanuel told her story of rising to fashion fame in a question and answer presentation conducted by SAWOY president, Port Adelaide Enfield councillor Carol Martin. (Husband Olivier has bone cancer.)
April
11
2012
It’s Easter Saturday and I plans to make a tasty lunch for Olivier, whom I expect will be allowed day leave from hospital today.
However, this delightful April Indian summer means I must water our new garden plantings first before the heat of another day wilts them. I have planted pansies around the garden borders because I find their happy colourful faces lift my spirits and I have plant my mother’s favourite rose – a pretty rosebud pink Cecil Brunner – outside my study.
However, the important morning task is to cook a tasty lunch to be ready when we arrive home at lunchtime.
Many years ago I heard French chef Gabriel Gate speak on French cuisine and I remember he said one sure way to gain confidence in the kitchen is to choose a recipe and then make it three or four times and experiment with it before claiming it as a favourite.
I never did, of course, but in our move into our new Belair home, I found the long-forgotten recipe book I bought at the time – Gabriel Gate’s French Cuisine for Australians – and although it is dated compared with the grand cookbook genre of today, I chose one of his recipes, Chicken Casserole cote d’Azur. I am delighted to find I have all the ingredients. It was a special cookbook because it was the first written by a French chef specially for Australians.
While the casserole simmers, I shower and prepare myself and by the time I am ready, the dish is cooked, filling the kitchen with a delicious Mediterranean aroma.
After all these preparations, I am disappointed when the doctor says Oli must remain in hospital today, but can have leave pass for tomorrow, Easter Sunday.
CHICKEN CASSEROLE COTE D’AZUR: (Casserole de Poulet Cote d’Azur)
INGREDIENTS:
1 chicken weighing about 1.6 kgs, cut into pieces.
1 Zucchini,
½ of a Brown onion, a capsicum and small eggplant,
200 g. tomatoes,
2 cloves garlic and bouquet garni,
1 tbsp olive oil,
100g black olives, stoned.
Salt, freshly ground black pepper.
METHOD: Brown chicken pieces in a hot, well oiled saucepan.
Cut all the washed vegetables into small squares, remembering to remove seeds from capsicum.
When chicken pieces are browned, add the sliced onion pieces and sauté for a minute. Add choppedgarlic, sauté a few seconds and add all the other vegetables. Season with salt and pepper, add the bouquet garni and cover the saucepan to cook gently for 20 minutes.
Add the olives for the final 10 minutes and taste beforfe adding more seasoning.
So simple, I am sure this is one recipe of Gabriel’s the I will try again and again.
April
10
2012
It is an idyllic April evening cruising in the Gulf St Vincent and I am enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime experience “steering” for a nonasecond, the multi-million dollar boat owned by renowned housing developer Gordon Pickard of Fairmont Homes fame.
I am one of 13 women invited aboard for a special fund-raising think-tank for the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Our host is dynamic Christina Angus, the new events and partnerships manager for the WCH Foundation – the official charity of the hospital.
Our captain of the triple-level cruiser named Triple 888 is retired businessman Colin McLeod, a close friend of Gordon Picard. He has the enviable task of cruising around the gulf for three hours while we 13 women sip wonderful French champagne and nibble on morsels prepared by Chris Jarmer of Air Restaurant.
Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch, nor as it turns out a free cruise and the inimitible Christina picks our brains for ideas to raise funds for “freshening the ward for adolescents” at the hospital. She proudly adds the WCH isthe only hospital in Australia with a ward for teenagers.
“About 250,000 kids and mums come to the hospital each year and 5000 babies are born,” says Christina, who was formerly the fund-raising guru for Guide Dogs forthe Blind for a decade.
She presents a list of needs including maisoneettes for the palliative care section of the hospital and research for new treatments.
“Children with cystic fibrosis did not live beyond their teens not so long ago, but now they can live into their 30′s,” she adds.
Eminent women, of a wide age range, include accountant Julianne Parkinson, who heads up the philanthropic activities of Ernst and Young, Mary-Anne O’Leary, Adelaide Festival Centre’s marketing and corporate relations manager, Kelly Baker-Jamieson, Edible Blooms managing director and social media whiz, Kelly Noble of GlamDigital.
Many years have passed since I headed up the Mrs South Australia quest, raising funds for the Crippled Children’s Association, but I remember the big successes we had in raising funds for disabled children. Cassandra Young of Foster Hill PR and Marketing has a far more recent success to impart. She spear-headed a big telephone campaign last year to raise $200,000 for the Queensland Flood Appeal in two weeks.
There is a saying if you want something done, ask a busy person which is clearly why self-employed movers and shakers such as Tanya Cole, managing director of NannySA, Melanie Flintoft, the design director of Australian Fashion Labels Pty Ltd and renowned artist Marie Jonsson-Harrison were aboard.
Christina thoughtfully stops our meeting to allow us to wonder at the brilliant sunset lighting up the horizon in brilliant crimsons and golds, and as the light leached from the sky, Adelaide’s shoreline shines in lights right along to the Hallett Cove oil refinery.
(Left) Myself, Marie Jonsson-Harrison and Mary-Anne O'Leary.
It is a heavenly evening giving us all a taste of the high life of Monte Carlo, Nice or St Tropez in France, where such craft are cheek-by-jowl in kilometre-long harbours. However, as we glide into Holdfast Shores marina once more, put on our shoes and step off we take with us an inspiring perspective of our beautiful city, set on St Vincent’s Gulf with the Mt Lofty Ranges behind, neatly containing its sprawl of suburbs.
April
9
2012
Our petit chien, cute puppy Oscar has metamorphised. We thought we bought a Shi Tsu Maltese X with a shaggy, long-haired coat just like his mother. And, sure we saw the daddy dog, a handsome grey poodle, but our little bundle of joy was surely mainly Maltese, he wasusuch an adorable puffball. How wrong can you be? I take our shaggy four-month-old doggie, who had the appearance of a champagne-coloured powder puff to have his first clip and when I returned a few hours later, I find he has become ashorn poodle. Oscar, underneath the fluff, had the tight curly coat of the poodle – and gone was the champagne color, except for his handsome ears.
This is all the more amusing because throughout my history as a dog-owner – and this is most of my life – I have never taken to poodles – and even though my hairdresser Brigitte, raved about the breed for 20 years, I remained unmoved. We had had two collies, (Lady Jane and
Codger) a beloved labrador (Tyler) and for the past 13 years, our exquisite Shi Tsu Maltese X Jackson. A poodle?Quelle horreur! Luckily for Oscar, he still had his playful nature and wicked ways which were so endearing and I am happy to report we are still in love with our very different dog. Here are some new pix of our tiny toy Poodle, Shi Tsu Maltese X.