GROWING up on a remote island in the Koro Sea has its fair share of challenges — yet villagers have found ways to overcome that by getting better education and a better life.
More than seven decades ago, in the village of Tavua Koro Island, the village chief had dreams for his seven children.
He wanted them to have better lives and believed they could grow up successful if they left their little rural paradise to travel to Viti Levu’s vastly available access to better education.
This is the story of one of his daughters, Dr Sereima Bale, one of the first Fijian females to become a medical doctor at a time when males had dominated the Fijian workforce.
Dr Bale, the wife of the late Attorney-General Qoriniasi Bale, is a consultant anaesthetist and assistant professor at the College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at the Fiji National University.
For her, the drive was to get out of the village, get a better education, a better life and support her parents with her other seven siblings.
“I attended Nabasovi District School during my early primary school days and then I came to Annesley Infant School in Toorak to continue Class 3 to Class 8,” Dr Bale said.
“At the time, we looked up to Adi Cakobau School as a school that breeds leaders so I worked hard in primary school to earn a spot there.”
While studying at Annesley, she was staying at a relative’s place and their parents joined them later in Suva.
Life for an eight-year-old in new territory much greater than the usual green scenery of the village was challenging — as she explained being plucked out of the island to start afresh in Suva with a new home, new faces and new experiences in an urban environment.
Dr Bale said she remained motivated to work hard and dream big.
To win a spot in ACS was the ulitmate prize. It was the beginning of a new life and what she believed was — the beginning of many good things to come.
The Sawani-based school instilled in the young Koro girl the will to become a strong and independent, young woman.
The school became her second home for seven long years and she made very good friends with other girls whose friendship l have lasted to this day.
“Learning at ACS was not just about leadership and academic, we enjoyed life, we kept the culture, being an iTaukei woman and it was a totally holistic educational learning process .
“I learnt how to survive. That really helped me in my life to be resilient and persistent and being a village girl and in a big school is a huge achievement which molded me to be what I am today.”
After completing Form 5, she was lured into joining nursing school after her best friend got a place there.
But she kept her options open and decided she would rather be a doctor, got interviewed and was accepted into the Fiji School of Medicine.
But Dr Bale had always wanted a scholarship to study in New Zealand so she returned to ACS and sit for her University Entrance so she could earn a scholarship.
However, things did not go according to her plan after completing high school as she was not able to attain a New Zealand scholarship. So she decided to enrol in the same medical course she had dropped from a year ago.
“I qualified in 1969 for Fiji Medical School, in my class at the time there were only three women and the core were made up of men. At that time, women working in the medical field was not a thing so I was usually among men; this gave me the drive to pursue my MBBS. I wanted to prove people wrong.
“So I completed med-school and got my first attachment at Lautoka Hospital. Next was for us to get a rural posting but I didn’t get any posting.”
At the time of her attachment, she was doing obstetrics (doctors who care for women during their pregnancy).
After nearly a year at Lautoka Hospital, she was told to return to Suva’s Colonial War Memorial Hospital and get further training to be an anaesthetist (medical specialists who assess patients before their procedures and play an important role in caring for the patient before, during and after surgery).
She also believes there is always time for everything so before retirement, it was time to pass on the baton to young Fijian anesthetists while she spends more time pitching in her experience and ideas to aspiring medical professionals.
And 49 years later, Dr Bale, who celebrates her 74th birthday on September 11, could only look back and thank the Lord for allowing her to conquer challenges and be an inspiration to many others particularly Fijian women.
She has four children and 11 grandchildren who despite her busy schedules always finds time to spend time with.
