Review
An account as captivating, clear-headed and humane as the woman who lived it, says V.I. Whitehead.
- Sister Kate: Nursing Through The Troubles
- Blackstaff Press
Sister Kate: Nursing Through The Troubles
Kate O’Hanlon’s account of nursing at the Royal Victoria Hospital during the worst days of the Troubles is no misery memoir. She records a lifetime of unflinching observation, no-nonsense planning and quick reaction in life and death situations.
Her eye for the telling detail is acute. Nurses crawl along the floor to avoid ricocheting bullets from a gunfight going on outside the hospital as they gather equipment to treat an injured policeman. A patient is treated for a gunshot wound in one cubicle while the man who shot him is treated nearby. A doctor moves calmly between patients while a gunman hangs about in the corridor. When commended for his bravery he says that he had not noticed the danger. Kate gives credit to everyone involved – from hospital porters to consultants, from cleaners to matron, she respects and values their contribution.
When someone needing treatment arrives at A & E they become patients. She makes no distinction between terrorist and member of the security forces, between innocent bystander and perpetrator. There is no high-flown rhetoric. She seldom criticises but when she does her words find their mark. We recognise the hypocrisy of politicians and pundits who prey on victims of carnage like McGurks Bar and the Abercorn - people who are ‘news one day and history the next’. During the 16 years as a sister in charge of the A & E department she witnessed both the physical damage that bombings, shootings and beatings caused and the mental and emotional trauma of victims and their families who ‘carry around invisible scars which none of us will see’. There are no sides taken in this book, no romanticism of the struggle for supremacy by either side. This is an authentic account of one woman’s experience as she tackled the butchery at the heart of the Troubles.
Since retirement Kate has shared her experiences with doctors and nurses at conferences world wide. She has visited Gaza as a member of a deputation reporting on medical conditions for Palestinians and been made a Dame of the Order of Malta in recognition of her services to the ambulance corps,
Kate and a few more of her ilk would bring the National Health Service back into line within months. She is a woman with strong views. Hospital Managers, a breed she deems expensive and largely unnecessary would be phased out, matrons would be reinstated, cleaners would be essential members of the staff and cleanliness would become an achievable goal. She advocates team work; with everyone on the team, from porters to consultants, being valued and respected.
In these days, when there is so much rewriting of history, it is refreshing to hear these stories told simply, with humanity and humour. Kate writes with the clarity of someone who lived through the worst days of the Troubles and retained her love of nursing and her acute eye for what happened. It is not a light read - but it is a salutatory one.
