Nurse Gets Worldly View

from Nurse dot com

Maryland RN and Doctors Without Borders leave their stamp on global poverty

Don Vaughan

Jane Hannon, RN, BSN, MPH, knows what poverty looks like. It's the swollen bellies of infants who are slowly starving to death because there's no food to feed them. It's the hollowed eyes of adults afflicted with diseases that were eradicated long ago in more industrialized nations.

As a healthcare provider, Hannon felt compelled to help such victims of global poverty. Between 2005 and 2007, she spent 10 months in Mussende, Angola, and six months in Teknaf, Bangladesh, working for the international relief agency Doctors Without Borders (DWB).

"I had worked for the Peace Corps from 1997 to 1999, so I knew I wanted to do international health work," says Hannon, who works as a research nurse coordinator at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. "I had heard about Doctors Without Borders, and the more I researched them and talked with people, the more I realized that this was the path I wanted to take in continuing my work overseas."

In Angola, Hannon worked with an international staff of three plus a contingent of Angolan healthcare workers providing essential health care for local villagers and others living in outlying regions. "We provided training to local nurses and treated patients, some of whom had complicated issues," Hannon notes. "We also implemented information, education, and communication programs regarding HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases."

In addition, Hannon helped train local nurses in patient assessment and related nursing skills. Because Angola still is recovering from decades of brutal civil war, many of the local nurses have less than a high school education, but possess basic "medic" skills, such as suturing. "A lot of them had trained in the bush with one of the two warring factions," Hannon says.

Safety was an ongoing concern during Hannon's 10 months in Angola. As a result of civil war, the nation contains more buried land mines than any other in the world, so the medical staff was instructed to never venture off established, safe paths. DWB workers are able to go home without repercussions if they feel their safety is in jeopardy, but Hannon says everyone on her team stayed through their contract periods on both missions.

In Bangladesh, Hannon assisted in a basic healthcare program for Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar and local villages. Hannon, her seven international colleagues, and a local staff of almost 100 set up and maintained a therapeutic feeding center, a basic healthcare clinic, and mobile clinic sites.

"I trained a group of health educators who provided health education sessions within the refugee camp," Hannon says. "We also trained hygiene promoters who would monitor and try to stimulate community ownership of water and sanitation facilities because the [hygiene] situation was less than ideal. They were also our eyes and ears. If there was any kind of disease outbreak or other unusual occurrences, they would tell us."

The majority of health issues Hannon saw were typical of Third World countries, and included malnutrition and infectious diseases. "Just the daily treatment of basic health problems made a huge impact," she notes.

When her missions were over, Hannon says, she returned home with the comforting knowledge that her service had been worthwhile. "It was the day-to-day things that really made a difference," she says. "For example, children who were brought to us severely malnourished and completely lethargic and who, two weeks later, had plumped up and were chasing their brothers and sisters around. It's amazing how resilient kids are. They can go from being severely ill to recovered in such a short time with relatively simple interventions."