Marsat Ketchell is a born and bred Torres Strait Islander hailing from Badu and the Murray Islands who has made two careers out of serving the community. 

In 1970 at age 15, Marsat joined the royal Australian Navy where he served until 1996, in that time, among many other things, he cleared WW2 ordinance in Papua New Guinea, trained counter-piracy staff in the Philippines, and advised Indigenous kids interested in joining the services. 

Perhaps his most important work came after his retirement from the Navy when he took up a job with Queensland Health on Thursday Island working in Social and Emotional Health and Wellbeing. 

Marsat made the choice to get vaccinated against COVID-19 so he could continue serving his community through Queensland Health. And vaccinations were old hat for him anyway, having been fully vaccinated in the Navy with no real fanfare. 

“Well, it didn’t really faze me. I knew it was always going to come along anyway, with Queensland Health, me being staff,” Mr Ketchell said 

“I’ve got a few tattoos, but inoculations and such didn’t really worry me. I’ve been inoculated since I was 15 as a young fella when I just joined up,” he said.  

“It’s like a great big lineup and off they go. They take turns on both sides of our arms.  

“I think because it’s a pandemic, it’s not an epidemic, it’s not like the common cold or something like that.  

“I took it upon myself I guess, to protect myself, my consumers I work with, my family, and basically the end result would be the community.” 

Marsat wants to make sure the people and cultures of the Torres Strait can continue on for thousands of more years as well and knows the best way to protect them from the COVID-19 virus is to make sure everyone who can, gets vaccinated. 

He knows that once border restrictions lift, there will be many, many more ways for the virus to get onto the islands. 

“There’s not many of us on each island, and it only takes one to wipe out a whole community,” he said. 

“They range from 250 people on an island to say Badu, 800 plus, and T.I. is about 3500.  

“We’ve got stuff like football carnivals coming up, and July first and things like that where everybody comes from everywhere.  

“Cultural festivals–this time of year, we’re the hub for visitors.  

“Grey nomads coming up from down south, you’ve got to protect them and protect yourselves against whatever they’re bringing up by road.  

“To me it was just common sense I suppose, and protection of my people and my culture.” 

As a Social and Emotional Wellbeing professional, he has also been talking to local folks about the safety and efficacy of the jab and attempting to allay fears caused by social media misinformation. 

“Some shy away, they don’t want to talk about it. But I still pass the message on anyway.  

“That’s how important it is to be vaccinated.  

“We all watch TV and YouTube. YouTube and social media probably mucks it up a bit. 

“Hopefully they’ll realise just how important it is, not only to get the needle, but our livelihood, our culture, will only take one before that’s wiped out basically. It only takes one.

Marsat’s help was even enlisted to liaise with the T.I. community for the COVID-19 rollout. 

“There’s a lot of travelling [for Queensland Health vaccinators], poor buggers.  

“They’ve got to travel a lot and do the whole of the Cape and stuff. I only did Thursday Island and a couple of the outer islands.  

“They wanted me to travel with them, just for rapport building with the community.  

“Just to pass the information that it is important and we’re all small. We’re all satellite communities and we’re pretty well knit.  

“And our customs are hugs and greets and shaking hands and kissing cheeks and stuff like that. It’s so easy to pass on like the flu, but this is not the flu.  

“This is a pandemic.” 

If you would like more information contact Torres Health or to book a vaccination appointment visit the Vaccine Clinic Finder.