Our People in QLD
To The Rescue - Peta Siggers
Nerang’s Peta Siggers is now about 6000kms from home and working in a place she had never heard of three weeks ago.
Now a Corporal in the Army, Peta has specialised as a medical technician and she’s working in the earthquake-devastated town of Sungai Geringging, about 75kms north of Padang in Sumatra.
Australian Defence Force has established a Primary Health Care Facility there and Peta and her colleagues have already treated over 400 patients. They are not only dealing with injuries following the earthquake, but tropical diseases at a relatively advanced stage.
“It’s good working here because we’re seeing illnesses and diseases that we don’t normally see at home,” she said.
“It’s the same type of illnesses as at home, but due to the isolation the locals here don’t always have access to the best medications so things become more developed and complicated.”
The Army has been practically the family business for the Siggers but Peta is the first female to join the long, proud line that includes her great grandfather, her grandfather, and then her father.
Peta joined the Army in 2003 and these days she is normally based at the 1st Health Support Battalion in Sydney.
“It’s different every day, I never get bored. I enjoy the role – doing triage and treating patients in the deployed health care facility.
Australian soldiers, sailors and airmen are working day and night to provide health care, purified water, and to deliver aid supplies to the people of Padang and the surrounding areas of West Sumatra in the wake of the devastating earthquakes that recently rocked the Indonesian province.