Radiography in the Kimberley was an entirely different beast when Anita McLean moved from Canada to remote, steamy Wyndham in the 70s.

There were about six houses in Kununurra and people travelled to Wyndham to be X-rayed by Ms McLean, who was last week named the winner of the Premier’s Active Citizenship Award at the Shire of Wyndham East Kimberley Australia Day ceremony.

Providing radiography services from Wyndham, she used a small, portable X-ray machine and then hand-processed its film in tanks. She also performed veterinary X-rays on animals including horses and crocodiles.

“We now use computerised radiography, which means no processing at all and we have a lot more modern equipment,” she said.

But the level of technology is not the only thing that has changed in Ms McLean’s role as a radiographer in the Kimberley. As a health provider in Wyndham she was well-known to the small community which depended on local services.

“All the patients came across to Wyndham for X-rays,” she said.

“Of course I knew everyone and of course in Wyndham you knew everyone.

“The whole community was orientated to whatever was going on, the whole town turned out, so everybody knew everybody and did everything together.”

Despite changes to the local lifestyle and the size of the population, Ms McLean said her bond with the community, and her fascination with radiography, was still very strong.

“The variety of people that come through, the variety of diseases they have, the injuries with all the different things that are done here now with farming and mining and school sports and all the building, that has really made it interesting too,” she said.

“With a chest X-ray, I have done 50 million of them, so to speak, it’s not the X-ray itself that is interesting, the people are.

“Each person that comes in is what is interesting, in terms of personalities.”

Ms McLean said she was shocked to receive the Australia Day award last week, but understood her role was important to the public.