Gaelle gives up holiday to aid blaze victims

OBAN hospital physiotherapist Gaelle Smith travelled to London yesterday ( Wednesday) to tend burns victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.

The 32-year- old physio is trained to help natural disaster and conflict zone victims by UK Med, a UK government Department for International Development-run agency which deploys medical volunteers to emergencies.

London needed more burns specialists, she had the skill set, so she decided to give up her holiday to help. ‘News was coming through about the amount of patients who need critical care,’ she said. ‘There has been a large increase in a specific injury.

‘I have done work in burns and how you cover a wound. A small burn in a critical place can create a functional loss. It is a very harrowing thing to see and to go through the pain. Also it is very disfiguring. Their concern will not necessarily be what they have endured, but what their families have endured.’

Gaelle came to Oban this year from Sierra Leone, where she had been relieving a shortage of staff following the ebola outbreak.