Liverpool Hospital emergency management unit manager Dwight Robinson and clinical nurse educator Jemima Moral are both skilled in emergency care.
They put that experience to good use when they were called in to the health front line during the North Richmond floods.
They spent five days working in the flood-affected community as part of the NSW medical assistance team, which included two senior doctors and two paramedics.
They were based in a hospital clinic which had been set up in a conference room to respond to Triple Zero (000) calls from residents who had been cut off by rising flood waters.
With North Richmond isolated due to flood waters and a land slip, the team cared for people with a variety of health care needs including stroke and palliative care patients.
They also sutured injuries, plastered a broken ankle and stabilised and prepared patients before they were transferred by helicopter to hospitals for further treatment.
Dwight Robinson, pictured below, said they supported a dedicated team of local nurses and paramedics who had worked tirelessly when the community became isolated.
“The only way to get sick or injured people out was to fly them out,’’ he said.
“Doctors treated people and sent them home or prepared them for transfer to hospital.’’
Jemima Moral said one of her most memorable tasks was caring for a palliative care patient.
“We set up a private room for the patient so her family could be with her and she was not alone,’’ she said.
Dwight has also been supporting the District’s emergency operations centre, which was set up in response to Covid-19 last year.
He has also been working in the Liverpool Vaccination Clinic.
Jemima recently returned from a deployment to Leeton in southern NSW to support rural hospitals when the NSW-Victoria border closed in response to a Covid-19 outbreak.
South Western Sydney Local Health District chief executive Amanda Larkin says staff are always quick to respond in a crisis and provide expert care in any location or circumstance, no matter how isolated.
“It was a wonderful team effort and part of our commitment to ensuring the community receives the care they need, including in natural disasters,’’ she said of the Richmond engagement by the two local nurses.
- South Western Sydney Local Health District is celebrating International Nurses Day (May 12) by hosting award ceremonies, a breakfast on the lawn, lunches and morning tea.
