{"id":10456,"date":"2024-05-14T10:21:15","date_gmt":"2024-05-14T00:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/tpch\/?p=10456"},"modified":"2024-05-14T10:25:35","modified_gmt":"2024-05-14T00:25:35","slug":"making-a-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/tpch\/news\/making-a-difference","title":{"rendered":"Nadine\u2019s mercy is making a difference"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nadine\u2019s mercy is making a difference<\/h1>\n
\"Nadine

Nadine Millar is making a difference to young lives in Africa<\/p><\/div>\n

For Nadine Millar, helping others less fortunate than herself is a passion. That\u2019s why two years ago, the intensive care nurse from The Prince Charles Hospital decided to broaden her horizons by volunteering her skills to help improve the health outcomes of people living in developing countries.<\/h4>\n

The registered nurse joined Mercy Ships, the world\u2019s largest non-governmental hospital ship that provides free surgical care and training to developing nations in Africa. Mercy Ships and its volunteers work to bring \u2018hope and healing to the world\u2019s forgotten poor\u2019 serving all people, without regard for race, gender or religion.<\/p>\n

Nadine has just returned from eight weeks in Sierra Leone, Africa, her second time in two years, providing nursing care to hundreds of adults and children with health conditions and ailments not treatable through the local healthcare system.<\/p>\n

She was one of around 150 health professionals from over 40 countries volunteering on the hospital ship to support the surgical treatment of adult and paediatric patients with various conditions. Surgical specialties provided include maxillofacial, orthopaedics, plastic reconstructive, ophthalmic, dental, obstetric fistula and palliative care.<\/p>\n

Nadine said that treating patients in a place like Africa was a very different and often confronting experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the patients we cared for had conditions we never see in Australia, such as large facial tumours and deformities, bowed legs, burn contractures and large thyroid tumours,\u201d Nadine said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike Australia, patients do not have the ability to access the necessary healthcare during the early stages of their disease process due to a lack of specialist healthcare and technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means that most people live with debilitating and painful conditions for years without assessment or treatment, sometimes causing other life affecting complications.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people are even cast out from society because of their health conditions \u2013 it is very sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the humanitarian nurse, using her skills to help disadvantaged people live normal lives again is a great privilege. One of her most memorable moments of her recent trip was seeing a young child see for the first time after having their cataracts removed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe look on the child\u2019s face was priceless, one of awe and amazement. They realised they had a bright future ahead,\u201d Nadine said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is wonderful to help bring so much joy to people who are so grateful to be healthy and live a normal life again \u2013 you can\u2019t measure it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me so unbelievably thankful for the easy access we have to reliable, safe and advanced healthcare in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Intensive Care Nurse Nadine Millar is passionate about helping others less fortunate than herself. That’s why she joined Mercy Ships to change lives in Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":10457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/tpch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/tpch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/tpch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/tpch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/tpch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10456"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/tpch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10460,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/tpch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10456\/revisions\/10460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/tpch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/tpch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/tpch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/tpch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}