‘I was a rainforest nurse’
Elizabeth Morgan has amazing memories of working as a young nurse in tropical Borneo
Training to be a nurse at the end of the Fifties, I then spent six years as a midwife. Although quite shy, I decided I would try for a post abroad and through the Ministry of Overseas Development obtained a nursing sister’s post in Sabah, North Borneo. So in August 1967, I flew to Sabah’s capital, Kota Kinabalu, via Rome, Singapore and New Delhi. On arrival, I was told I was going to be sent to the ‘Interior’ (the rainforest), as most sisters posted there refused to stay long as it was too quiet and lonely – they preferred life in the capital. I spent a week in Kota Kinabalu, getting things together as my trunks would not arrive for some time. I was eventually put on the mainly wooden train (called the Toast Rack) and off I went into the dense, tropical rainforest. Needless to say, I was scared stiff! I kept a rolledup newspaper in my hand to swish away the persistent leeches which dropped in through the open window. At one point I saw a large tree monitor lizard running alongside the track, to a wide-eyed English country girl like myself, it felt rather like I was being chased by a T Rex. For the rest of the journey I tried to calculate in my head if I had enough money for a flight home. I had to get out of the train at one point as there had been a landslide over the line and had to scramble over it to reach another train waiting at the other side. I was met at Tenom by two New Zealand volunteers and taken by Land Rover to Keningau, my home for the next 18 months. I absolutely loved it. In those days, with no mobile phones or computers, you had to think on your feet. There were two doctors at the hospital, both from the UK and I am still friends with them. My sister belonged to a WI in Lancashire and when I told her that we didn’t have an incubator in the maternity department, she and other members raised enough funds to purchase one and sent it out. The first time it was used was for a baby, born by caesarean. His mother had gone into labour, but the baby was lying in a transverse position, no chance of a normal delivery, with his arm and hand dangling out of the poor woman, an alarming shade of blue. She had been seen by a nun who ran a mission station and told her to go to the hospital. Amazingly, she travelled miles, in labour, on foot! It was a miracle that the baby survived. It was put into the incubator, much to the delight of the natives who came from far and wide to view the baby in “the box”. The father had returned to his village and told the nun that he had been told to visit anytime as the baby was in a glass bottle. The nun was alarmed as she thought I had pickled it and kept it as a specimen! I spent two years there, having lots of experiences and adventures. I returned to the UK but went on to nurse in the Solomon Islands and Ethiopia as a member of the International Red Cross during the famine in 1974. Looking back, life has been pretty good. I have had much to be thankful for and have some wonderful memories!
At one point I saw a large tree monitor lizard running alongside the track, it felt rather like I was being chased by a T Rex!