Bay Harbour: March 20, 2019

Wednesday March 20 2019
Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi
BAY HARBOUR
PAGE 17
Our People
Rose Lindley
Returning to nursing to work in Africa
After 47 years as a
nurse, Mt Pleasant’s
Rose Lindley wanted to
get involved in aid work.
So she spent three weeks
on a mercy ship in Guinea,
West Africa. Sophie
Cornish talks to her about
the experience
Tell me about your trip on the
mercy ship?
I worked as a recovery nurse,
looking after people after they
have had surgery. I have done
that for more than 20 years in
Christchurch. It took more than
40 hours to get to Conakry, the
capital of Guinea in West Africa,
and more than 40 hour to get
home – it was hideous. The
mercy ship organisation is more
than 30-years-old. Basically it
is a Christian ship – it is run on
Christian principles. You don’t
have to be a Christian to work on
it. You are treated regardless of
your race or religion; there are no
barriers. They treat everything.
They go up the coast of Africa.
The countries of West Africa
invite them to come because they
can’t provide surgeries for people.
Even if they did, the people
couldn’t afford to pay for it. So
mercy ships provide free medical
and surgical care for these
patients. People come to the ship
at the beginning of its time in the
country and they are assessed for
suitability of surgery. Some people
they say yes to, some people
they can’t treat and have to go
home to die. There is a palliative
care team that follows them up.
Not everyone can be treated, but
they treat as many as they can.
They spend 11 months in every
port. Sometimes they take people
in at the beginning of their time
there, then they go away and
come back and have follow-up
surgery. It is funded by donations
from big corporations in
America. A lot of pharmaceutical
companies provide resources. All
the people on it work for free and
pay for everything.
So how does it all work with
the staff?
You pay for your airfares,
vaccinations and a monthly crew
to live on the ship, nothing is
free for staff. I was on it for three
weeks. Some people are on it for
two weeks and the longest person
has been on it for 30 years. He
brought up his whole family
on the ship – there is a really
good school on it. The thing I
always say about the ship is that
it should never work, but it does.
We have 400 people, plus 200 day
crew, living on a ship together.
There is something like 30 or 40
nationalities working together
and it’s the happiest environment
I have ever worked in. It was
brilliant, it was amazing. You
could be working with someone
from Australia, the Netherlands
or Germany, but English is the
spoken language. They have
interpreters throughout the place.
From September last year to
when I was there, they had 214
staff through the theatre block.
A lot of the staff go back again.
For me, I wish I did it when I
was in my 20s. I would have gone
back, but it’s a bit late now, it is a
long journey to travel. There are
a lot of jobs I could do. There is
a place called the hope centre,
where people stay until their next
surgery. There are a lot of jobs –
plumbers, electricians, every job
you could think of, it’s like a wee
town.
Was everything as you
expected it to be?
I watched the videos online
and it was what I expected,
but the atmosphere was way
more amazing than I ever
anticipated. It was beautiful.
The conditions we saw on the
ship, we would never see in
New Zealand, because we have
free medical care here. There is
a huge stigma about disability
there, it is considered a curse.
These people are ostracised from
their communities because they
are disfigured, so they come to
the ship. No one on the ship is
revolted by what they look like,
we know they need help. So they
immediately feel they are loved
and not ostracised. When people
feel they are loved and not being
told they are different, there
is hope. The extremity of the
disability was way more than you
would ever see in New Zealand.
There were children born with
cataracts, no one in New Zealand
is born with cataracts. It’s to do
with malnutrition and disease
with the mothers. There were
goiters (when the thyroid gland
becomes enlarged). The biggest
one they removed when I was
there was 1.6kg. Nothing is
treated at an early phase, there is
no early treatment. These people
live on less than $2 a day. Things
are cheap there, but if you don’t
have an income, it is still not
enough.
Did you ever feel unsafe there?
Conakry is certainly not on
the tourist destination route. It’s
so poor. Most western tourists
like a little bit of comfort; they
like to see giraffes and elephants.
The infrastructure is pretty
limited there. At the moment,
it’s reasonably politically stable. I
think the ship was in Cameroon
last and that’s really unstable
at the moment. They have this
awful, unstable political situation
in most of these countries. I
never felt unsafe, though, not
once. They really love the mercy
ships, they are French-speaking
so they would say ‘merci.’ We
weren’t allowed to go into
town by ourselves, they didn’t
recommend it. To be honest, it is
all pretty unsafe, poverty drives
people to it.
Tell me about your 47 years in
nursing?
I trained in Christchurch. I
went down the surgical route of
nursing. I have always wanted to
do aid work, but when you have
a husband, children, a mortgage,
all that sort of thing, it makes it
harder. I did some private work,
but I mainly worked at Christchurch
Hospital, working in the
Intensive Recovery Unit and
in recovery for 14 years. I have
been overseas and worked in the
outback of Australia. You might
think I have an obsession with
indigenous people, and I have, I
love them. I worked in this place
called Halls Creek, way up in
Kimberley in Western Australia.
• Turn to page 18
ON THE JOB:
Rose Lindley
recently
returned from
working on a
mercy ship as a
recovery nurse
in West Africa.
NEW
LOCATION
95 Gasson St
The Automotive Lamp Specialists
3 issues $20
6 issues $44.50
10 issues $65
New and Used Lamps for Cars, Trucks,
Vans, 4WD and Motorhomes
PH 0800 225 483 | 95 Gasson Street, CHRISTCHURCH
SUBSCRIPTIONS
FREEPHONE
0800 77 77 10
rugbynews.co.nz