L-R: Dr Hannah Krause, Prof Judith Goh and Dr Alexandra Mowat
A nurse from Greenslopes Private Hospital is preparing to take on Mount Everest Base
Camp, to raise awareness and money for research in to gynaecological cancer.
Sharleen Smith was recently promoted to
Clinical Nurse, but she has been working
at Greenslopes Private Hospital since her
career started 13 years ago.
She spent time caring for patients with
gynaecological conditions during her
role as a ward nurse, which prompted her
to take on the charity challenge.
“There was one patient many years ago
and it was probably one of my first big
cases. The patient must have been in her
early 30s with two young kids and she
got a terminal diagnosis and she wasn’t
going to watch those kids grow up and it
greenslopesprivate.com.au | 11
Doctors from Greenslopes
Private Hospital change
women’s lives in Uganda
Urogynaecologists from Greenslopes Private Hospital
sacrificed Christmas with their families to volunteer their
time and surgical skills to women in need in Uganda.
Professor Judith Goh AO, Dr Hannah
Krause AO and Dr Alexandra Mowat
travelled to the foothills of the Ruwenzori
Mountains in late December to diagnose
and operate on women suffering various
medical conditions, including vaginal
fistulas and uterovaginal prolapse.
“Patients generally can’t get access
to medical care or they can’t afford to
receive it, so the conditions they present
with are quite extreme. They have the
conditions for a long time or they come
in quite unwell because they’ve not been
able to get treatment,” Dr Krause said.
Dr Goh and Dr Krause have been
volunteering for more than 20 years,
while it was Dr Mowat’s second trip.
The trio, with support from scrub nurse
Ms Melina Kreutz, treated 144 women and
operated on 109 women during their two
week stay in the remote region of Uganda.
Professor Goh said: “It’s amazing to
see the changes they have in their
outlook even within a couple of weeks.
Sometimes when they first come in they
are very embarrassed and won’t say very
much, but once we perform the surgery a
lot of them open up, they smile.”
Ugandan nurses visited local villages to
identify women who needed treatment
and escorted them back to
the specialists.
Announcements were also made on the
local radio service, which was the only
other way to inform women about the
visiting medical staff.
“The working conditions are actually
quite tough; there’s no air conditioning
in the theatre, it’s in the tropics so it’s
really, really hot, and often there is no
electricity. But with the opportunities I’ve
been given in regard to my training and
education, I think it’s just more than living
a good comfortable life, it’s to try to help
as many people as we can,” Professor
Goh said.
The visit was part of the ‘Medical
Training in Africa & Asia’ project which
is managed by Professor Goh under the
Health and Development Aid
Abroad Charity.
Each of the team members self-fund
their trips and raise money to pay for the
women’s surgery, hospital stay
and travel. Greenslopes Private Hospital
also donated scalpel blades, vaginal
packing gauze, sterile gloves, Marcain for
spinal anaesthesia, Mayo needles and
theatre masks.
“Greenslopes have always been very
eager to assist up in terms of providing
equipment, and the theatre nurses
are very good, in that they will ask us
if we need equipment if anything’s
decommissioned before they throw it
out,” Prof Goh said.
Professor Goh and Dr Krause are
also providing specialist training to
six doctors in Myanmar and have just
returned home from a training trip.
They are also visiting Cambodia during
Easter 2019 to volunteer their services,
before returning to Uganda in October.
Everest challenge for Greenslopes Private Hospital Nurse
Sharleen Smith Training for
Mount Everest Base Camp
was just heartbreaking, it was just awful,”
Sharleen said.
Sharleen has always been active and
uses exercise to help wind down from
days at work which can sometimes be
emotionally challenging.
Last year, the experienced nurse told her
husband she wanted to take on the trek. A
few months later a gynaecological cancer
surgeon at Greenslopes Private Hospital
started organising groups of people who
were interested in trekking Everest Base
Camp as a fundraising activity.
Each participant must
raise $10,000 for the
Cherish Women’s
Foundation as a
condition of doing
the trek. Sharleen has
already reached that
goal and raised an
additional $1500.
“My group has three doctors and three
other women who are cancer survivors
who are hiking for their personal journey,
so it’s going to be a good mix of people,”
Sharleen said.