On the 25 Sep 1999 1st Forward Surgical Troop (1 FST), a unit comprising of personnel from the 1 Fd Hosp and RAAF medical branch, left Sydney for Darwin on its first journey to the unknown. Darwin was our staging area where we became accustomed to the hot humid weather that would confront us when we would arrive in Timor. 

After boarding the HMAS Jervis Bay, with its cargo of 500 or so personnel plus stores, we left Darwin at approximately 2100 hrs. The sea journey to Timor was to take 12 hours. During which time, the units on board received briefs and updates as to where they would be located in Timor and then, where possible, grab some sleep. The seats on the ship were not conducive to comfortable sleeping so the floor, and what comfortable seat space was available, became a valuable commodity.

On the 1st Oct 1999, at approximately 0830 hrs, HMAS Jervis Bay arrived in Dili Harbour.  We stood outside on the viewing deck and the air was thick with the stench from the smoke and humidity. The dock was a hive of activity, with Australian soldiers busily preparing for our disembarkment whilst in the background, watching from a distance, were the Indonesian soldiers.

After disembarking, we were loaded on to trucks for the short drive to our home for the next six months. When we left the quarantine of the wharf, all personnel were ordered to adopt the Action condition and keep our eyes open. Once through the wharf gates, as we passed through the city of Dili, we saw first hand the destruction and smouldering buildings. Approximately two or three kms from Comoro Airport, some ten kms from Dili, was the museum and it was here that our tour began.

On arrival at the museum, we were given a brief by the RSM of what tasks needed to be done and that the importance of water consumption, due to the heat and humidity. Our first task was the clean up of the Museum & buildings within the compound area. This task took almost a week of scrubbing walls, floors and cleaning out the debris from the aftermath of the election. Once the cleaning had been completed, 1 FST equipment and stores began to arrive. This began our next stage of providing health support to the InterFET contingent, locals, non-government organisation’s (NGO’s) and UN staff.

As the Primary Health Care Team SGT, the Primary Health Care (PHC) tent was the first department to be set up. The team consisted of a medical officer, nursing officer, SGT medic and two CPL medics. This team provided both a Resuscitation Bay capability, plus an RAP service. During our time, there we saw 1,800 patients not including a number of Resus patients. The PHC was also the outpatients department providing an outpatient or specialist service to the local people, NGO’s and the UN personnel.

On top of this, as we did not have the luxury of having a company of infantry soldiers to perform the task, the members of the FST also had to perform their own security piquet. This piquet consisted of both night roving and front gate piquets. The front gate was manned 24 hours a day, and depending when you got your piquet you either worked a three-hour piquet during the day or a two-hour piquet during the night. Night roving piquet consisted of two people who had staggered two-hour shifts.

Our work in Timor did not stop just within the compound of the FST, we also performed humanitarian aid work to the villages in the mountains, body identifications, searches, taught English classes at the orphanages and provided new skills to locals who we employed.

1 FST was also joined by a contingent of 30 personnel from the Singapore Military Forces. They consisted of doctors, admin staff and medics, who set up an additional PHC and Resuscitation department. This helped out as a roster was set up in providing 24-hour health coverage in Timor.

In the period leading up to Christmas, the unit was involved in providing medical support to the concert in Dili Stadium that was televised to Australia. Some of the stars from the concert also visited the hospital to cheer the troops and patients in the wards, stars such as Doc Nielson and James Blundell (to name a couple). On Christmas Day the unit gathered at the Mess, where the officers and senior NCOs served the OR’s their Christmas lunch (as is the traditional custom), which was washed down with a few beers. Some personnel also took the opportunity to dress in a Santa suit to deliver gifts to the children in the area.

The tour ended on the 21 Feb 2000 the same way we started with a sea journey to Darwin leaving Dili Harbour at approximately 2030 hrs and arriving in Darwin on the morning of the 22 Feb 2000, where we rested prior to departing for Sydney that night. On the way home we received congratulatory words from senior commanders in Darwin, Brisbane and Sydney, our last stop to an enormous welcome home.

This article can only give a small insight this tour; our working hours were long, with one day’s rest out of seven. The day’s routine consisted of a number of things, not forgetting that disease such as malaria and dengue fever were a constant issue which need to be addressed by taking your anti-malarial medication and the wearing protective clothing. During this period of time we also maintained our mil skills ensuring that TOET’s were conducted on a weekly basis.

At the beginning of the tour there was apprehension, fear of the unknown and not knowing what was expected. By the end of the tour though there was a feeling of accomplishment, tinged with some sadness in leaving the local people who were employed at 1 FST.