A life changing visit to Zambia for a trainee nurse
By Joanne Beesley
At the end of my second year of studying paediatric nursing at University, I had the opportunity to spend a three-week placement anywhere in the world, and I was fortunate to be hosted by the Presentation Sisters at Cheshire Home in Mongu, Western Province, Zambia.
Cheshire Home is a place for babies, young children, teenagers, and young adults with disabilities that require treatment, to live during term time. Treatment and care include regular physio, weekly clinics, operations, and basic care such as washing, medication etc. The home treat and care for a mixture of disabilities; some lifelong disabilities developed during or after before birth; others a result of accidents or poor healthcare. For the children with cerebral palsy, treatment consists of management to avoid the condition progressing and affecting the individual physically through adult life, as well as teaching them how to manage when they leave the home.
Other children in the home with conditions affecting their limbs, either from birth or due to trauma., also undergo physiotherapy and often surgery to treat and correct (if possible) their condition. Orthopaedic Surgeons fly from Lusaka to Mongu three times a year to perform surgeries on these children, either slowly correcting over a few years, or performing amputations.
The children will then undergo lots of physio, and other treatment such as wound care and plastering. Due to the level of continuous treatment that these children receive, they live at the home through term time, away from their families. There are classrooms, a swimming pool, a dining hall, dormitories, and a courtyard that the children can use through the week, as well as clinics that run on site, physio, and carers who work day and night shifts.
Over my three weeks at the home, I lived in a house onsite so that I would be close to the young people and the sisters. I worked alongside the home’s nurse for majority of my stay as well as working a week at an urban general clinic down the road for a week, working with other medical professionals. I was able to take part in immunisation clinics for the babies at the clinic, club foot clinic and plastering, first aid for the children on site and wound care. This experience and the skills I learnt, I will take with me throughout the rest of my training and onto my career as a children’s nurse. I learnt how to utilise the little resources I had for basic first aid, such as wound care or sudden presentation of illness.
A handful of the skills and memories I will take however, were not medical. I learnt how to communicate with the children and locals through a language barrier (and in turn also slowly learning the general greeting and phrases that were useful from a nursing point of view). I spent time out of hours with a nurse that took me to see some sites such as the Zambezi River. Sister Cathy also took me out of Mongu to see some other spots in the western Province; places and sites I will never forget. Living close to the sisters was very reassuring for me. Being alone and not having travelled so far before, I often needed reassurance or just a conversation about what I had done that day; any worries or concerns, and similarly, any achievements or happy encounters I had made that day. I had lunch with them every week day and was always welcome to join them for breakfast and dinner if I wanted.
I am extremely grateful to have been able to have this experience at the age of twenty, as not only will it benefit me professionally, through my studies and career, but also on my outlook on life.
Although it was such a short trip, as soon as I arrived back in the UK, I could already recognise things in my daily life that I hadn’t thought twice about before. Going to the supermarket and having five different options of pasta and hundreds of sauces; whereas in Mongu, if the delivery truck had broken down from Lusaka, there would be no pasta to buy for a week. Another aspect of my life that I had never given two thoughts about prior to my trip, was the opportunities and activities I can do every day. The children couldn’t go out to the park after classes or go for a meal with their family. I had an understanding of the differences before I left, however it was these things that I thought to be basic and simple that never crossed my mind, that now will resonate with me.