EVEN though she retired 12 years ago, Hazel Europe’s love for the job runs very deep within her, so much so, she cannot help but keep going.

Today, after serving for 42 years in the profession at almost all the health centres on the East Bank corridor, she is one of the many friendly faces at Golden Grove Health Centre.

Qualified midwife Nurse Hazel Europe told the Pepperpot Magazine that she is more than pleased to be serving her community and if she has to do it all over again, she will.

Europe recalls her teaching days when she was wasn’t truly happy with her job; she would often get hoarse from having to shout out loud to get the attention of undisciplined children and realised that wasn’t her true calling.

“To tell you the truth, I liked teaching of which I spent seven years, but then I wanted to do something else and tried my hand at nursing; and I knew that was the job for me, because I enjoyed it at once and that motivated me to get qualified,” she said.

Serving the community
The nurse added that in 1981 she started doing home visits, delivering babies from house to house and found maternal and child health to be an interesting profession she adored.

She disclosed that she worked at almost all the health centres along the East Bank wing from Herstelling to Mocha-Arcadia, Long Creek, Dora, Soesdyke, Kuru Kuru and Moblissa, just to name a few.

She, however, pointed out that she started her nursing career at the Golden Grove Health Centre, where she gravitated more towards the noble profession when it was just a one-flat building which housed the resident midwife, back then.

Europe reported that the Golden Grove Health Centre serves the entire Diamond and other villages, so they are often swamped; but they work quickly to minimise the waiting time for patients, since some work in the city and would have to get to work on time or in good time.

The midwife stated that on October 5, 1976, the same year as the Cubana Air Disaster, she began her nursing career.

Nursing — a good career path to follow

Nurse Europe added that being a midwife is a 24-hour job, because when people have her number and they need her they would call and she has to respond.

“In this job you are never off, because if I am home and somebody comes to me, once they come up the steps and the baby head is coming out you cannot send them away, you have to help to deliver that child. I was taught many things including emergency tactics, because I served at the Emergency Unit for seven years, so I know how to handle certain cases of birth,” Europe said.

Europe is also a trained Voluntary Testing and Counselling (VCT) counsellor/tester and would often provide those services to patients whenever the need arises; especially if a doctor is not around.

She related that back in the days as a nurse, they were taught many things, since phones were not so established they could handle situations without the presence of a doctor.

The midwife recalled that back then, when she did home deliveries of babies, she would have to go to that house and bathe the baby for the first nine days and still go to work at the health centre to which she was attached.

“Nursing is very nice and I don’t think I can do anything else because I like serving people and in the years gone by, nurses and midwives were respected people; they used to call on you to certify the dead, being the district midwife,” she said.

The midwife pointed out that she likes the job so much that after she retired 12 years ago, she kept renewing her contract annually, telling herself it will be her last year but would continue because nursing has left an indelible mark in her life.

“Sometimes I does be in clinic busy, then just so somebody push out a baby in the yard and I got to ask for an excuse and go assist the woman and child then return to tend to patients, ‘ she said.

At 67 years old, Europe is not tired in any way and although none of her five children followed in her footsteps of becoming a nurse, they patterned after her husband, who is a teacher and she is not disappointed in any way.

The nurse is originally from Kitty, but relocated after she purchased a plot of land at Samatta Point, East Bank Demerara, a community where she said she is safe.

“Samatta Point is a nice place to live, sometimes we forget to lock the doors and would leave the house and return to find nothing missing, and it is a place with claybrick roads which is still standing up to the elements, Europe said.

She added that the village benefitted from a playground recently and that is very commendable, because before that time the children used to play games in the cul-de-sac, which is in front of her house.

“I never migrated because I thought of my children….I stayed home and qualified myself when my peers went abroad to work in the field of nursing and I am satisfied that I choose to serve the community. Every year I saying I will retire, but after this year I will, because I can still fully go into retirement mode,” she said.