We asked Charlie McCarthy, an Emergency Nurse Practitioner, Chair of Unison’s Forth Valley Branch and local Global Citizenship Champion, to share his experiences of supporting healthcare training and development overseas.
Charlie is also working with colleagues to explore the development of a new Global Citizenship Network in NHS Forth Valley and details of how you can find out more and get involved in this work are listed at the end of the article.
“Back in 2010, I was selected to take part in the Emergency Medicine Project, I travelled with Emergency department clinicians from across Scotland’s Accident and Emergency Departments to open, then teach in Malawi’s first true, Accident and Emergency Department.
“I spent my first trip on learning mode, as we adopted gold standard, Scottish Health care to the poorly resourced Malawian conditions. On day one, as I told the class before us, what we were aiming to teach them during the coming, basic life support session, several of the class walked out in protest, as we were interfering with the ‘work of God’. We had to adapt quickly, to do so, we needed to engage with the people, to learn about their hopes and fears, to learn what they wanted from us, to help them improve the conditions they lived in.
“Through this engagement, I developed friendships which I hold to this day, friends who expressed their frustration at the lack of education and the hope that education would bring. I returned to Scotland as my daughter ‘Maura’ was spending her last days of pre-school. One morning as I drove her to Nursery, she called my attention from the back seat as she said, “Daddy, it’s not fair, I’m getting to go to school, but girls in Africa don’t”, I regret that I dismissed her at the time, simply saying, “OK, we will do something about that” as I returned to listening to the car radio, however, her words hung in my mind, I thought about my new friends in Malawi, of ‘Peter the poet’, a vastly intelligent man, who wrote Poetry on discarded paper with decarded stubs of pencil, who was brought to tears, by my gift of a book of Irish poetry from my hand luggage, a second hand, dog eared book, bought many years before that he hugged while informing me, that my old tattered and stained book, was the first ‘gift’ he had ever received.
“I consulted friends and family before launching the charity ‘Maura’s Mission’ in my daughter’s name, the charity would work with two of the top schools in Malawi, to identify ‘pupils with the greatest academic potential from the poorest families in Malawi, then pay their school fees that they may realise their enormous potential.
“The Charity has been going for 12+ years now, we have seen the graduation of Nurses, Doctors, Teachers, Physios, Climate Scientists and Mathematicians, who we first came across as they faced expulsion from our Boys or Girls school, then supported them through school and University. Its humbling to see our graduates start their own ‘Malawian Maura’s Mission’.
“Malawians tell me that we are making a difference, our small charity in Scotland, funded by individual Scots, who want to see African children get the same chances as Scottish children, is giving hope.”
Global Citizenship Network
If, like Charlie, you have experience of supporting a healthcare project overseas or are interesting in this work then we’d love to hear from you. Please contact our local Global Citizenship Champions, Charlie McCarthy at charlie.mcarthy@nhs.scot or Hannah Soulsby at Hannah.Soulsby2@nhs.scot
The national NHS Scotland Global Citizenship Programme also aims to widen participation and make it easier for all NHS staff to participate in global citizenship, both here in Scotland and overseas.
To find out more, including the role of Global Citizenship Champions, visit the national website.
