By Naomi Marshall

COLWYN Allen, better known to many as `Nurse Allen’, is one who lives by those words. At 34, he is a nurse by profession, a humanitarian, a TV personality and also the founder of ‘The Healthy Living Health Club.’

But where did his love for humanitarianism come from? Allen grew up in the Wismar Housing Scheme with his father, mother and five older siblings. The last of six children, he was very outgoing and somewhat spoiled. However, from a tender age Allen enjoyed volunteering, always helping out the smaller children and even the older folks in his community.

Growing up, he always liked the medical arena and dreamt of being a brain surgeon, however, things changed as he got in contact with several persons of different profession.
At the New Silvercity Secondary School which he attended Allen came out successful at the end of his five years, and in 1995 he began teaching at the Regma Primary School where he remained for six years. But in 2005, he had a change of heart and enrolled at the Nursing School and has remained in the nursing field ever since. He currently holds the position of Quality Assurance Officer at the Linden Hospital Complex.

Speaking with the Pepperpot Magazine recently, Nurse Allen remarked that one of the biggest joys of being a nurse is getting to help and meet people from all walks of life, while adding that the `noble’ profession teaches you how to love. “If you don’t have love in your heart you cannot be a nurse. It’s a profession whereby you go beyond your call of duty,” he posited.
However, like any other profession, there are challenges including the fact that nurses have to improvise a lot and live on a small income, he reminded.

“Sometimes there won’t be a lot of resources for you to work with and as a result of that, the patients don’t benefit 100 percent, but because of the joy and the care and the love for the job that you go all out to make that patient comfortable,” Allen said.
Over the past years, Allen has been the host of the radio programme titled ‘Healthy Living with Nurse Allen’. One of the successes of his presentation is when members of his TV audience started reaching out and inviting him to their homes to conduct counselling, and in some cases administer minor treatments such as dressings. Realising that his services was in demand and he finding it difficult to do it all on his own, Nurse Allen entertained thoughts of forming a group and began inviting volunteers. This idea led to the formation of `The Healthy Living Health Club’ in April of 2016. The organisation adopted ‘Health promotion, disease prevention’ as their objective.

The Healthy Living Health Club has had eight outreaches in the past with the first being held in August 2016 in the Bamia community. Other communities to have benefitted from the club’s initiatives are Moblissa, Wismar Hill, Victory Valley Wismar, Block 22, and Kwakwani among others. The club’s membership of 35 among whom are medical students, nurses, housewives and teachers. In addition to offering medical services to residents in the various communities, the organisation also distributes clothing, food hampers to the less fortunate.

According to the young nurse, the club’s has its eyes set on the communities of Rockstone, Blueberry Hill and Oruro to take its outreach services, even as he identified the lack transportation and sponsorship as the main challenges preventing the club from giving of its services to its fullest potential.
“Currently we are using my car and it suffered a lot when we went to Kwakwani. It’s kind of hard when we have to charter buses to take all 35 members around,” he said. On this note, Nurse Allen expressed the hope that more persons would come on board.

Apart from the radio programme, the father of three is integrally involved in other mass media projects including a Facebook live programme; ‘Health Talk’; and ‘Health Watch.’
Allen sees himself doing more humanitarian work and giving healthcare services to people in the future. “There are some impoverished areas. There are some communities around Linden and other parts of the country that we want to do some work in, so in the future, I hope to reach out and take our services to all of the Regions,” Allen added.