Director of aged care, rehabilitation and palliative care at the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network (NALHN) Alice Every (left) and acting nursing director of aged care, rehabilitation and palliative care Kathryn Smith at the Lyell McEwin Hospital after Mrs Every received a humanitarian award for her work volunteering overseas. PHOTO: Supplied
A LYELL McEwin Hospital nurse has been rewarded for her selfless work outside her job, at the SA nursing and midwifery awards.
Acting nursing director of aged care, rehabilitation and palliative care at the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network (NALHN) Alice Every recently received a humanitarian award for her work volunteering in Samoa throughout 2017.
Mrs Every spent the year training nurses and providing care in the country with the Australian Volunteers for International Development program.
The experience required Mrs Every’s whole family to move for a year to the island nation, including her two young children.
She said it was a tough, but rewarding experience that has influenced her nursing back home.
“It was really challenging working in an environment with so few resources,” Mrs Every said.
“They don’t have a palliative care service at all, they don’t have anyone with specialist skills in the field.
“It was a challenge to provide education to the nurse I was working with, and other doctors and nurses in the country.
“Also, they don’t have a lot of health resources in general, the disease burden and how sick people can get was quite confronting.
“The culture in Samoa of how they care for each other and look after their families was really quite inspiring.”
On top of the lack of health resources, Mrs Every said getting to patients in remote areas of the country also posed a problem for her team.
Island villages and poor quality roads forced her and her team to walk or sail long distances to deliver care.
“The organisation I worked for was a really small non-government organisation which only had about four employees, but the lengths they went to try and help people was incredible,” she said.
“People’s houses were often not easy to get to, we had to hike in to homes or go to islands by boat.
“Those sorts of things were really out of the ordinary and just seeing how people cared for their loved ones in their homes was the main thing for me.”
Mrs Every was nominated for the award by her manager at NALHN, who she thanked for the nomination and the opportunity to spend a year overseas.
“It’s nice to get the recognition for something like this, but it’s obviously not why you do it,” she said.
“It’s helped coming back now with new skills and knowledge, I’m definitely a lot more patient now.”
