The camera pans across the exterior of the Davis Wing – the wing which houses female consumptives – before showing patients in their beds on the outdoor veranda. Staff and patients are filmed in close-up, with many …

Marg’s first placement with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) was in South Sudan where a terrible civil war had been raging for over 20 years. She was thrown into the work from the …

This clip shows the conditions of those living in low income areas of inner city Sydney. The children living in this environment, according to the narration, ‘start life’s race with a handicap’ placing a …

At the Australian Inland Mission nursing hostel in Birdsville, the AIM sisters alternate between nursing and domestic duties. One of the sisters treats a young girl who has an injured finger. She …

Andrea Stretton is talking to Germaine Greer about her new book The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause (1991), which is proving just as controversial as her previous work. In the interview, Greer suggests that …

After she recovers from the car accident, an eye specialist tells Colo (Isabelle Huppert) that her left eye must be surgically removed if she is to retain any sight. She refuses the choice. At home …

The Simms are a young couple who’ve come to Melbourne from the bush to find a better life. They barely manage because Mrs Simms has a chronic illness that takes up nearly all her …

Craig Hamilton had a breakdown in September 2000, at the pinnacle of his career. He and an old friend, Chris Williams reminisce about that terrible and very public moment of the breakdown, as Craig was …

A woman leafs through a Women’s Weekly magazine and shows her two friends. A picture of a Volunteer Aid Detachment nurse (VAD) is on the front cover. This fades out and back in to …

Historical footage of Indigenous people in both cultural activity and in the process of being institutionalised in the mission church.

Eve has an allergic response to insecticides, cleaning agents and preserved small goods. Diana reacts badly to the chemicals in newsprint. Michael has an adverse response to the chemicals in tap water.

Professor Eric Saint first came to the Wittenoom blue asbestos mine with the Flying Doctor service. He was horrified at what he saw and tried over many years to raise the alarm.

Still photographer Carol Jerrems (1949-1980) documents her time in hospital with the terminal illness polycythemia.

David Bradbury heads across Scotland on a train to interview Professor Eric Wright, who disagrees with the findings of another scientist (Chris Busby, see [c[clip one]]) about the increasing incidence of cancer around nuclear …

This clip from a silent black-and-white cinema advertisement for Anthony Hordern & Sons shows Santa visiting the Royal Alexandra Hospital. Santa, accompanied by a young girl dressed as a fairy, arrives by horse-drawn carriage and waves …

At Franston Home in Victoria, children undergo rehabilitative hydrotherapy in the swimming pool. A boy is levered out of the water in a stretcher-like machine and lifted onto a bench beside the pool. The next …

Vehicle exhaust emissions are responsible for increased deaths from asthma, heart disease and lung cancer due to all the toxins in petrol and diesel, according to Professor Ray Kearney, a vocal supporter of biofuels. He …

The Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Women’s Council are holding their executive meeting. The women express their objection to the presence and abuse of substances in their communities.

A four-wheel drive makes its way down a stretch of road at Curtin Springs. The women are discussing the alcohol-related fatalities that have occurred here. They reminisce about the 1990 march against the sale of …

Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical Company supplies six million people with insulin each day. Twelve-year-old diabetic James Jarvis interviews Dr Richard Di Marchi about insulin.

Twelve year-old James Jarvis is suffering a low blood sugar attack. His mother has to administer glucagon to him.

David (Noah Taylor) is now a star student at the Royal College of Music in London, and one of the candidates for the Concerto Medal. He proposes performing Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Concerto for Piano for …

In 1997 Avian flu erupted in Hong Kong. The government destroyed all chickens and the outbreak was contained. Virologists Robert Webster and Albert Osterhaus talk about the potential for human transmission.

Interspersed with shots of Areyonga community, Frank Djara tells how he communicated health issues through painting, and by talking about sickness to his people.