Experienced Volunteers Provide Excellent Care
As the medical wards in the Philippines stay busy, the patients are in good hands with the knowledge and ongoing care that volunteers deliver.
On a busy day aboard the USNS Mercy, Kelly Scatton, a Project HOPE volunteer, took on the lead role in the Intensive Care Unit while the hospital ship was in the Philippines.
While the day started out fairly slow with only one patient, as more and more surgeries started to finish up, the ICU room quickly filled with patients.
“We had a great team,” says Scatton, a Registered Nurse from Lake Forest, California. “We had two team members from the Netherlands, a volunteer from Latter Day Saints Charity, and a handful of Hospital Corpsman.”
“The patients had a smooth transition through the recovery phase due to the great work of my team,” she added.
Scatton says that while one of the down sides of taking a lead role in the ICU is not having any patients of her own to care for, “It was a rewarding experience to keep my team happy and energized, knowing we were providing excellent care.”
In another part of the ship, Project HOPE volunteer Karen Rudderow, a nurse from Collingswood, New Jersey, is one of the smiling faces that patients see when entering Ward 1.
Like Scatton, Rudderow has been a member of the Pacific Partnership 2012 from its first country in Indonesia. “While we have noticed a difference in the medical cases that we are seeing in the Philippines, having one country under our belts and being used to the ship and understanding how the military works has helped the workflow to go smoother,” she says.
“In some sense, our team has become a second family,” she adds. “We share laughs and stories, but in the end, deliver the best medical care for the patients. “
As the medical wards stay busy, the patients are in good hands with the knowledge and ongoing care that volunteers like Rudderow and Scatton deliver.