Jem Masters

Mardi Gras Medical

While you may be dancing the night away, Jem Masters is one of a few volunteers who are often quietly saving lives behind the scenes.

A twelve year volunteer of the Mardi Gras Medical Tent that services Mardi Gras events and various other parties for the gay community, Jem has been co-ordinating the tent for the last seven years and says his involvement started when he got tired of spending all night on a dance floor.

It was around 1995 when a roving volunteer from the Medical Team found him having a little nap at a Mardi Gras party and asked if he was alright. "I said ‘Who are you?’ and I thought ‘aw, I could do that!’"

Jem’s contribution hasn’t just been a 24-hour-watch over the health and safety of partygoers, but in the information and research he has helped compile and interpret. The Medical Tent really is in a league of its own in terms of on-site medical support for dance parties, "we’re actually a first line medical team, we go above, and beyond first aid. We’ve had people come from other countries and say ‘we wish we had something like this at our parties.’"

Having written a research paper for the Queer Space conference in 2007, Jem says it’s a compilation of anecdotes and evidence of the important work the tent does. He believes the paper itself really is the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we can do with the information that he’s compiled.

"We have an amazing database of statistics, compiled over the last eight to ten years I’ve been actively involved. I think that resource is something to which government needs to say ‘here have some money, write up this program’. It could start thinking about how can we support not only the gay community, but other people with what’s going on here."

Started during the height of the HIV epidemic in the early eighties by some "very inspirational and forward thinking people" Jem says he’s "seen the service that the Medical Tent provides grow. The community know it’s a safe environment to come to."

Although the Medical Tent currently receives no funding from the government, its efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. "I know from my dealings with NSW Ambulance and Professor Graham Forder from St Vincent’s, that if it wasn’t for Mardi Gras Medical Team the health service would be swamped on the big events. They wouldn’t be able to cope in the emergency departments, the ambulance service would be backwards and forwards, and there would be deaths."

And while Jem coordinates the Medical Tent’s operations and a list of 300 or so volunteers, he says he’s a small part of a terrific team. With ten people on the medical committee that do a lot of work behind the scenes, Jem says the tent relies heavily on its funding from Mardi Gras for its medical supplies and "the goodwill of our volunteers".

What else does Jem do with his limited time? As a registered nurse with degrees in health and nursing management, Jem is a part-time lecturer at the University of Sydney and works part-time in the emergency department at St Vincent’s Hospital. The latter are both roles that have helped Jem build strong relationships with local health services, which make the volunteer tent a real success.

"We know our community. We know our community likes to party hard. On the whole the community parties safely but sometimes people don’t know how to party safely and that’s when we have to jump in and look after them."

While Jem says he doesn’t generally need ‘time-off’ because he’s had his turn at wild party days, inevitably most volunteers float in and out as much as their life or their other commitments allow, and that the tent is "always looking for volunteers".

Jem says it was a complete surprise to be nominated for the Same Same 25 and that he’ll be at the awards night with his "long-suffering partner".

"He never gets to dance with me. I will have the one or two beers through the night. He will dance with our friends and come back, and go dance and come back. He says, ‘you go and do your thing because I know that you love the tent, and you won’t have any time to talk to me!’"

And does Jem feel like an influential part of the community?

"I consider myself very privileged. I feel privileged to be able to work with a fantastic group of like-minded individuals who care. I think that if I didn’t feel so privileged, then I wouldn’t do what I do."

By Joel Bryant