RAN: Remote Area Nurse

Episode 1

The Coral Age

Helen Tremain (Susie Porter) returns to the remote island where she has spent the last five years as a nurse, with a strong sense that this place is now her only home. Her mother has died and Helen is the last of her family. But the island isn't the tropical paradise she remembers. The substitute nurse was a disaster and the indigenous health workers are rebelling. And there's Myrtle (Louisa Taylor). Intellectually disabled, Myrtle is pregnant yet again to another anonymous stranger. She pleads with Helen to let her have the baby on the island, even though it's against the rules of the health department. Helen takes the risk that threatens her career - she will help Myrtle deliver her baby in secret. But she needs the help of Paul (Luke Carroll), the chief health worker who has gone walkabout, and his sister Nancy (Margaret Harvey), who is home from medical school. Their father is the Island Chairman, Russ Gaibui (Charles Passi), a charismatic man who runs the island and his family with an iron grip. The visiting doctor discovers Helen's plan to help Myrtle and sends a posse to the island. Russ is furious. And Helen faces the sack. Strange then, that Russ vents his public fury on his children, Paul and Nancy, effectively saving Helen's neck. What is stranger is Russ' overtures towards Helen, which both attract and alarm her.