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A Day in the Life 11
A Day in the Life...nurse Sarah Corfe Words: Kate Taylor | Image: Kyle Barnes
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OR Sarah Corfe, her day job as a nurse at the Daylesford Hospital is a far cry from being part of the award-winning Project Hamrahi team helping palliative care patients in India.
But at the end of the day, it’s all about helping people. Having been a nurse for 13 years, the past four spent at Daylesford following her work at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, travelling to India – twice – to help endof-life patients was quite the change of scenery. “It’s about progressing palliative care in India…access to medicines such as morphine is usually not available at all, because the government has a fear that people would abuse it in terms of stealing it,” Ms Corfe said. It’s one thing that the project, with Ms Corfe’s help as a volunteer, has had a huge impact on – lifting the ban on morphine for palliative care cancer patients. The project, which is also run by Woodend resident and Peter MacCallum Pain and Palliative Care specialist Dr Odette Spruyt, won Palliative Care Australia’s inaugural Innovation In Palliative Care Award - and showing nurses in India how they can improve their fledgling palliative care practices is what it’s all about.
A Day in the Life...in India 9am: Getting to work in the morning is easy; the nurses are dedicated and live within the hospital grounds. As part of increasing the visibility and community awareness of palliative care, it’s interview time. Stories on Ms Corfe appear in the Bengali and Hindi newspapers, as well as one appearance on a local television program, all helping to raise the profile of end-of-life care. 10am: Going on patient rounds is, not unexpectedly, very different in an Indian hospital. Talking with the nurses about what they do and offering advice on things that they can add to their current practices is an important part of improving clinical expertise when it comes to palliative care; it’s new in India, but something Ms Corfe specialises in and passing on the knowledge gained from her experiences is vital. 11am: Still on rounds, it’s time spent dealing with patients with cancer so advanced that it’s palliative – only because India does not have the resources to pick up the diseases earlier. They don’t have access to things like pap smears, so cervical cancer gets picked up at very late stages, meaning a lot are palliative by the time they are diagnosed. People don’t know what symptoms to look out for with breast cancer or cervical cancer, and also tobacco use is very high, as people don’t understand the risks of lung cancer, and by the time it is diagnosed it is often too late. 12pm: It’s one surprise after another. India is a lot cleaner than some may anticipate, but some practices are a bit left-field; for example, it’s normal for family members to do personal care of patients. And while it’s their recommended practice, helping out a patient is still a nurse’s duty when no family members are available. 3pm: Attending conferences is also part of living and working in India; and there are a lot of medical developments coming out of the country. It’s home to the most up-to-date research into using honey on wounds – there are some very exciting things coming out of India in terms of nursing.
“It’s about progressing palliative care in India…access to medicines such as morphine is usually not available at all, because the government has a fear that people would abuse it in terms of stealing it.”
A Day in the Life is an occasional series by journalist Kate Taylor.