Student nurses choose to face disease and poverty

from The Northwich Guardian

By Staff reporter

THREE student nurses at Leighton Hospital will travel more than 5,000 miles to experience poverty and disease.

Paula Bamping, Chris Westhead and Mandy Shaw will spend six weeks in Malawi later this year.

The three mums, aged 38, 43 and 44, will leave their comfortable homes and families to nurse in hospitals and villages in one of the poorest countries in the world.
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Paula said: "This is a big step for the three of us.

"We've all got nice houses, nice cars and things we take for granted but most people in Malawi live on less than 30p a day."

Chris added: "I think it's going to be a big life-changing experience - it will be an adventure because we don't know what's going to happen."

The three women, who are in their second year of a nursing diploma at Leighton, will be living in basic accommodation and helping people with HIV and AIDS, tropical diseases and TB, which is on the increase in Malawi.

As part of their diploma nursing students have to undertake a six-week observational diversity placement to experience other aspects of healthcare, but most stay closer to home.

Mum-of-two Paula added: "A lot of people stay in this country and go on a different ward in the hospital or work at Styal Prison."

Chris, mum to three teenagers, said: "We could have done anything really but we wanted to do something in an under-developed country."

Each of the women have to raise more than £2,000 before they leave on October 15 and have already received sponsorship from Instep UK in Sandbach and Sliders UK.

They are also accepting donations of shoes and clothing to take with them and have had donations of medical supplies from a company called Ambu.

Anyone else who can donate sponsorship or goods should contact Paula by emailing paulabamping@aol.com or ring her on 07929 985 024.