A BRAVE nurse decided to travel to a Polish refugee camp to help care for Ukrainian refugees fleeing from the war.
Wendy Warrington, 55, from Tottington, has been a nurse for the NHS for 36 years and decided she would travel to the southern town of Przemysl, close to the Ukraine border to offer medical care for the influx of refugees arriving.
Wendy, who speaks fluent Polish, was originally helping to coordinate aid packages being sent to Ukraine from the Polish club in Bury but she didn’t feel she was doing enough.
Her husband, Simon said: “She had a lot more to offer being a nurse and a midwife so she decided she would go, I gave her my blessing.”
She arrived in Poland last Sunday after she booked three weeks unpaid leave off work at Pennine Care Trust. She is funding the entire trip herself.
While she is in Poland, she has been working as a first responder alongside two Polish medical students.
She is working in a fully-equipped medical centre, a converted American truck which was donated by the Ronald McDonald Foundation.
Wendy recently treated two Ukrainian women who fled Kharkiv, Tatiana and Olga, and their 14 and 16-year-old children. They are both university lecturers and have left their husbands and homes behind.
When they got off the train one fainted from dehydration and exhaustion.
Simon said: “It’s the first time I’ve seen emotion from her, she’s a medical professional she’s seen people die and she doesn’t easily get affected by things.
"But today she was close to tears with stories they were coming back with. She said this has become so real for her now.
“She’s really been touched by the plight of the people, and she’s realised how useful she is, she likes to be hands on with patients and actually make a difference to people.”
Wendy, also a trained midwife, wants to set up an ante-natal clinic and offer maternity care to the women and for those who have new borns whilst they are there.
While Wendy is in Poland, she has tasked her husband with sending over medical supplies for her and her students.
He said: “I was fully supportive of her, I actually wanted to go to.
"But unfortunately, I don’t speak Polish so I feel everything I can do would be better served at home.”
A JustGiving page has raised more than £4,000 towards medical supplies, which Simon is helping to ship out to Poland with the help of his employer, Segen.
You can donate at https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/wendy-warrington
Donations made via JustGiving and use of the JustGiving website will be subject to the JustGiving privacy policy https://www.justgiving.com/about/info/privacy-policy/privacy-policy-v30 and cookie policy https://www.justgiving.com/about/info/cookie-notice None of the donations will be collected by Newsquest. Financial transactions are with JustGiving to donate to the British Red Cross Society DEC Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal. In the unlikely event that the British Red Cross Society raise more money than can be reasonably and efficiently spent, any surplus funds will be used to help them prepare for and respond to other humanitarian disasters anywhere in the world. For more information visit https://donate.redcross.org.uk/appeal/disaster-fund Charity Registration No. Eng/Wales 220949,Scot SC037738, IOM 0752, Jers430
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