The nurse who is always on call and holidays by helping disaster victims
Time off for Elizabeth Gilmore means running to the aid of the injured and afflicted, writes Shireena Al Nowais
Elizabeth Gilmore sees beauty when there is nothing but disease and famine for miles around her. She sees hope and humanity in places where despair and despondency predominate.
The 29-year-old registered emergency nurse leader at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi has spent much of her life volunteering in war-torn and disaster-struck countries.
The daughter of a nurse and a mechanic, she says “it was only natural” that she would end up being an emergency nurse and a volunteer.
“For as long as I remember, my family and I volunteered,” she says.
Joining Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi from Baltimore in the United States, in October 2014, Ms Gilmore seizes every opportunity to get on a plane to help those most in need.
Her first volunteer trip was to Kenya in 2007, when she was 17. “I don’t think I was ever scared. I always took the necessary precautions.”
In 2011, she travelled to Honduras, where she worked for a start-up clinic. The next year, she moved to Ecuador to help out at a mobile clinic treating tribes in the Amazon.
Two trips to Egypt soon followed, where she taught nurses basic emergency care.
“Typically I go with different groups and where opportunities present themselves. Once you get into the loop, you become aware of the different things that are going on.”
In 2015, she travelled to Nepal to help victims of an earthquake that killed thousands of people. Her most recent trip was to Bangladesh.
“Whenever I have time and I can, which is probably once a year, I will travel to volunteer.”
While most redeem their annual leave to take holidays, Ms Gilmore uses hers to help others. “I do take some vacation time,” she says, almost bashfully.
About 900,000 Muslim Rohingya now seek solace in shanty tents in Bangladesh, fleeing in what the United Nations has described as ethnic cleansing.
Ms Gilmore was eager to do everything she could to ease their suffering.
“Bangladesh was my first refugee exposure and was quite different from Nepal in the sense that Nepal was a natural disaster. But both are awful situations, with thousands of people displaced and diseases that pop up when lots of people get together.”
Her ready, wide smile hides the amount of death and disease she has witnessed.
“I think we are quite privileged and have a lot of resources that so many in the world don’t have, so it is always an eye-opener. It is also always different in that, even if I have gone back to the same place, it is always a different experience and you meet different people who are going through different things, which is also what keeps me going back.
“Even though it is for short periods of time, not only do you feel that you are helping people but you also feel that you are getting something out of it.
“I feel like I am playing my part in humanity and for me, it is a small sacrifice. If I can take some of my money and some of my time and I can help you and make you feel better by getting you the right resources – like a vaccination or an antibiotic for your infection, for example – those are all really simple things but help in the bigger picture.”
What always strikes her the most is people’s humanity.
“Volunteering has made me appreciate our differences. I appreciate humanity. Everyone is so different but I’ve always found beauty everywhere I have been. People are always loving and accepting and it is basic humanity.
“We all have the same fears and needs. The need for love and companionship. When you strip everything back, all the basic needs are the same.”
Ms Gilmore plans to return to Bangladesh in February. She feels the refugees there are in the greatest need, particularly as monsoon season approaches.
“When I think of Bangladesh, the picture in my mind is when they took us to the middle of the camp on a small hill and I turned around 360 degrees, and as far as your eyes could see were people upon people upon people.”
During her visit, officials estimated there were up to one million refugees in the camps. “And it is just growing and growing. The number of families and children and babies being born. It is a continual expanding population in desperate need,” she says. “If more people volunteered in smaller ways, it would have a huge impact.”