RN Emma Turner on volunteering in Papua New Guinea

Registered nurse Emma Turner currently works in the Wodonga Hospital emergency department but in 2017, as a new nurse, she volunteered on the Youth With a Mission medical ship in Papua New Guinea (PNG). She returned again in February this year for a second outreach tour.

‘I worked alongside other volunteers from Australia and from other countries too. I was in the primary healthcare team, made up of registered nurses, midwives, doctors and community health workers from Papua New Guinea,’ she tells ANMF.

‘My role involved providing childhood immunisations, doing general health check-ups, wound care and education, and helping the doctors with basic tests like blood pressure checks, urine samples, malaria tests and TB sample collection.’

Emma says that they ‘always made sure the community was happy for us to be there; we would share a bit about who we were, why we were there and then provide some health education to the whole group (mothers, fathers, babies, children would all be there). Some of the things we provided education on included smoking, hypertension, healthy eating and hygiene.’

Working with local community

‘We very much worked on the ground level, supporting the local healthcare workers to provide access to health care and education in their communities,’ Emma explains.

This was key for her. ‘I was there for such a short period of time, but I was inspired that there are local community health workers who desire to make such a difference to their own communities and that they live and breathe this every day. So I felt honoured to be able to work alongside them and hear their stories and learn from them.’

A typical day, Emma explained, saw the team ‘walking through water, mud and over log bridges to set up an on-site health clinic. This could be under a tree, in a church, in someone’s house or in a shelter.’

Highly recommended

Emma sees volunteering as ‘a great way to spend time time off, meet new people, be put out of my comfort zone, use my nursing skills in a different location and to serve alongside like-minded people.’

She notes that the challenges of working in PNG – including the remoteness of the villages, and how far people have to travel to receive medical attention, ‘often canoeing in the elements!’ – has made her grateful for the access to medical care that we have in Australia. ‘Having been on this experience, I now stop and think before I complain about our healthcare system, as I know we are so fortunate to have what we have.’

Asked if she would recommend the experience to colleagues, she is effusive: ‘Do it! It is such a great opportunity to use your skills in a way you never would have thought, in such unique environments – and you get to do this while meeting new people, learning about people from other cultures and seeing things in a new perspective. It doesn’t have be this big, long-term adventure; it can just be a few weeks. Your small part can make a big difference!