Okanagan nurse works to lessen refugees’ misery
Vernon nurse spends 3 weeks volunteering to care for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh
With less than 72 hours’ notice, Crystal Grymaloski travelled from Kelowna to Bangladesh to work as a volunteer nurse helping Rohingya refugees for more than three weeks in December.
Grymaloski, 34, lives in Kelowna and works as an intensive-care unit nurse at Vernon Jubilee Hospital.
She first heard of the medical work Samaritan’s Purse does overseas from a friend who works with the organization more than a year ago.
“She thought I would be a good fit for the disaster assistance response team,” said Grymaloski.
Grymaloski applied for the program and went through orientation in the fall.
She then got an email on Dec. 5 informing her of the opportunity to go to Bangladesh.
“It was confirmed Wednesday, Dec. 6, and I was on a plane Friday, Dec. 8, in the morning,” said Grymaloski. “It was less than 72 hours from even knowing the opportunity was there to being out the door.”
Grymaloski is studying for her master’s degree through the University of Victoria to be a nurse practitioner and was in the midst of final exams when she got the email.
“I wrote a final the day before I left,” she said.
Once in Bangladesh, Grymaloski was working in the Memorial Christian Hospital compound in Malumghat, where 20-30 patients were seen at a time.
“If people needed surgery, they would come to our hospital, have the surgery, then we’d recover them, then discharge them,” said Grymaloski. “I would admit patients and get them comfortable and settled and start IVs and give them medications after they had their surgeries, change their dressings and get them up and moving.”
The majority of the surgeries were orthopedic, and patients ranged in age from one-year-old children to people in their 70s.
“Some were brand new injuries from falling or motor vehicle collisions, and some were sustained while the Rohingya were moving from Myanmar to Bangladesh,” said Grymaloski. “We saw some old, infected fractures and injuries from gunshot wounds; we also saw burns that we did skin grafting on.”
In three weeks, Grymaloski logged more than 250 hours, working day and night.
“It was a little overwhelming at times, but the patients were the most marvellous people, and my co-workers . . . were a really wonderful group of people,” she said.
This was not Grymaloski’s first nursing trip overseas.
In October 2016, she travelled to Papua New Guinea to work in primary health clinics in a remote village.
“When I do something like this, it’s meeting a very real need that otherwise may not be met and is hopefully sustainable and will have a lasting impact on somebody’s quality of life,” said Grymaloski. “I try to be a champion for equality and for social justice, and it provides me an opportunity to do something practical I feel has a meaningful impact.”
Grymaloski said she is not sure what is next for her, but she is ready to go overseas again and help wherever needed.
“I’ll be waiting for the next email, and if it works well with my schedule I’d love to do another trip like this,” she said.