I had to be on a plane within 48 hours, to fly into a war zone. I was going to put my emergency nursing skills to the test as part of a Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) Emergency Response Team. I was joining other nurses, doctors and logistics staff to deliver health care to Sri Lankan and Tamil people affected by civil war. I couldn’t help but wonder; how would the skills I learnt working in big hospital emergency departments transfer to a field hospital?
In 2009 the Sri Lankan Army mounted a large military campaign against the Tamil Tigers (LTTE), bringing an end to a civil war that had been running for decades. Thousands of civilians were killed, many more were injured. As people fled for their lives they couldn’t meet their basic needs or access medications or healthcare. The Sri Lankan Army imprisoned all Tamil people in large camps. The camps held over 200,000 people in dire conditions… some say it was the largest internment of people since the concentration camps of world war two. I worked with my colleagues in a field hospital in the middle of the camps. It was an amazing facility given it was built from the ground up in a matter of days… but it did still flap in the breeze.
Our nursing skills transfer well from one context to another. New Zealand nurses have good assessment and communication skills, and I felt confident diagnosing, managing and treating various ailments as part of a large team. Because the team members came from different countries, good team communication was vital. This was especially true when we were dealing with trauma – we had a child that was shot through both lungs and her spine… chaos ensued as we all tried to do our best for this child. At times the work was harrowing, but as we got better at our jobs, patient outcomes improved, and the work got easier.
Communication with many of our patients was hard, but it got easier over time, as I learnt some basic Tamil and figured out the body language. As time wore on, it became clear that as well as healing physical wounds we were in a unique position to listen to stories, and help people process the emotional and mental turmoil they had experienced. At the end of a shift I would often just sit and talk to patients, and listen to their stories. I learned of loved ones lost, dreams shattered, livelihoods bombed to oblivion. For these people there was no quick cure, and many of them will be living in poverty to this day, dispossessed of their land and denied their culture.
After three months my time was up, and I was flown home. It was hard to say good bye. Six years on the stories stay with me, and make me thankful I am a New Zealand nurse.
*The United Nations Human Rights Council is holding an international inquiry into alleged war crimes committed by both the Sri Lankan Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the final stages of a decades-long conflict that ended in 2009. Its report will be released in September 2015.