University of Queensland: Week 3 in Cambodia!

COUNTRY: Cambodia
PROGRAM: UniBreak Groups
PROJECT: Nursing
WRITTEN BY: Annie Matters

So another week gone and another week closer to our sad return to Australian shores. The closer our departure gets, I think the more all of the Nursing and Midwifery girls don’t want to leave! In essence this week ran much the same as last week. The group of students were divided between the Krabei Riel Clinic, Svey Chek Clinic at Angkor Thom, and the School and Clinic/Home Visits at the Military Handicap Development Centre. We all rotated so that, this week, we were at a different clinical area.

Fresh faced from our recent trip to the Cambodian Capital, Phnom Penh, we were ready to roll. In Phnom Penh we saw the S-21 Museum and Killing Fields, Visited the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, Wandered along the Tonle Sap river (of course hunting down the local Blue Pumpkin for an Ice-Cream) and generally enjoying the weekend and time off. Anyhow, as I was saying; New week – New experiences!

At the Krabei Riel and Angkor Thom clinics the girls were busy performing their health assessments on the local patients as well as providing health education and health awareness lessons to the nurses. Brylee Pratt, one of our group, spent this week at Svey Check, Angkor Thom. She couldn’t speak more highly of the staff that she worked alongside, saying that “the nurses were so accommodating and I really enjoyed getting to know them over the week.

I loved educating them on various topics and hope that they will remember our time together and find what they learnt useful in the future.” Rosa Smith was at the Krabei Riel Clinic this week and was involved in a very special postnatal check on a newborn baby. Rosa stated that her highlight of the week was “feeling the privilege of having a baby named after you, in the hope that the child will make as much difference as you have.” The girls over at the Military Handicap Development Centre also had an interesting week. At the school they presented education classes to the men, women and children about Diabetes, Healthy eating and Contraception among other things.

Claire Forwood and Caitlin Morrell were both teaching this week at MHDC school and were touched by the enthusiasm of the children. They both commented on how much they enjoyed “teaching the kids the names of fruit using the fruit salad song” and “how quickly they understood the concept of healthy eating. Go Kiddies!” Meghan Bretnall was one of the students presenting to the men’s and women’s classes and had this to say; “I enjoyed seeing how excited the adults were in each of our lessons. Every day there seemed to be more and more men and women turning up for our health education classes.” There was a fun afternoon when Emma Feeney was entertained by one of the adorable little kids at the school; “I loved watching the kid who wanted to be a singer do Gangnam Style, after his hour of health education of course, Oppa Cambodia Style!!!” The girls who were based at the MHDC clinic and home visits were busy organizing data and getting prepared for next week, when we plan to go shopping to buy supplies for the village community from our donated funds.

They were also busy at the clinic doing health assessments, as I believe word had well and truly gotten out about the UQ Students visiting, and everyone wanted to come down to the clinic for a check up. Rhian Contessi was one of our girls at the MHDC clinic, and she stated that her favorite experience from the week was “watching a young boy get stitches out all along his neck. He was so brave so I gave him a bouncy ball as a gift; he was so excited.” It really was a fantastic week this week. At the end of each day everyone would sit by the pool and share stories about their experiences. We can’t believe there is only one more to go!