Nurses lend a hand in Nepal

Eileen Born and Maddie Williams, of CQ University, are going on a nursing trip to Nepal to help where they can.

Mike Knott

TWO CQUniversity Bundaberg students will give up the comforts of home to help out in a hospital and various community health camps in Nepal.

Maddie Williams and Eileen Born are looking forward to the November trip, which aims to give them experience working in a different type of health system.

“It’s definitely something I’m looking forward to,” Ms Williams said.

“We’re going to go into local communities and teach them about things like hand hygiene and the importance of washing with soap and cleaning your teeth.”

The students will also be giving doctors and nurses a hand at a hospital in Pokhara.

“So far we know we will be going to a hospital to work with a doctor and other staff, and getting to look at things like surgery and the paediatric ward, and pitch in where we can,” she said.

For the trip the trainee nurses are fundraising and asking for donations of simple medical supplies.

“We are going to need things like soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste and simple dressings,” Ms Williams said.

“It gets a bit tricky because we have to be careful with bag limits so we don’t go over.”

Donations made will go towards buying medical supplies in Nepal.

CQUniversity lecturer Anne Eaton, who will be leading the trip, said last year before heading to an aged care village the group bought a new blanket for each of the residents of the village.

“When we take money over that’s we do,” she said.

“We find out what it is needed for and see what we can do to help.”

Ms Eaton said simple supplies were also helpful.

“We do a lot of health promotions on the hygiene side and how important that is to keeping healthy,” she said.

This trip will be the second time the university has taken a group of students overseas.

“One of the aims is to get students to look at cultural diversity. It gives them a taste of what people who come to Australia feel like when they have to ask for help and don’t know much of the language,” she said.

“The other angle is to give students experience in working in an environment which is not as well resourced, so they have to make do with what they have.”

Ms Eaton said a number of students who made the trip last year described it as “life changing”.

Donations of medical supplies can be dropped off at the CQUniversity front office.