SURVIVING a dramatic car accident caused a Tavistock nurse to re-evaluate her life and volunteer herself to provide medical aid in rural Kenya.

Practice nurse and team leader at Abbey Surgery Emma Banks will be packing her bags early next month to travel to south west Kenya with several other volunteers to help run clinics in rural and isolated communities.

Emma said: ‘Back in 2010 a young student nurse came back from three-months volunteering with Camps International in Kenya. He raved about it to his mother who is a practice nurse. She explained to him that with a mortgage, bills and work commitments she couldn’t take three-months off work.

‘However, she contacted the camps and they said if she could get a band of 20 UK nurse volunteers together they would lay on a programme. She did and they went out in November 2011. She and two others have returned every year since, with newbies and returners. They work alongside Kenyan volunteers doing clinics in the bush.

‘I have been watching from afar and always thought how courageous it was and what a great thing it was to do. In January I had a nasty car accident and the driver and I should not be here today. I re-evaluated my life and decided I should get out of my comfort zone and volunteer my skills to a much-needed community in rural Kenya.’

Emma will be going out with a number of other volunteers, including her cousin and another practice nurse from Plymouth who used to work in Tavistock. The UK volunteers will support local Kenyan volunteers and doctors. The trip will last approximately two weeks and will see the group set up three sets of clinics for two days each in different areas.

‘If there is no shelter for the clinics we will have to make our own but in some places schools have allowed us to use their facilities. People come from all over to these clinics. Someone told me that last year a man walked 8km bare-footed to the clinic with respiratory problems and sand fleas in his feet because they don’t wear shoes. They have nothing, absolutely nothing.’

Emma has been told that the clinics usually see a lot of respiratory problems, family planning issues, foot problems and eye problems.

She specialises in diabetes and travel vaccinations in the UK but knows these things won’t be so much of an issue in the rural communities and so is getting help from GPs to learn how to listen to chests and increase her knowledge of tropical diseases.

‘They say every year is different — you cannot predict what will come through the door. At work I have medics around me, colleagues and equipment. Out there it will be so different.

‘There will be no British doctors but there will be Kenyan doctors and nurses. We’re not going to be there to teach them or tell them what to do, we’ll be there to support them in their world and learn from each other.

‘I’m terribly excited but hugely apprehensive. It will be an amazing experience. I’m told Kenya gets under your skin.’

Emma said the team at Abbey Surgery had been very supportive as well as companies that had donated supplies for her to take with her. Her family are also very supportive and envious of her trip.

Emma will be off on her trip on November 6. Anyone who would like to support her by way of donation can do so at Abbey Surgery.