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Helen began the year by volunteering in Kenya and as the pandemic started to kick off , she returned to Australia and the Gold Coast University Hospital intensive care unit .
Her career has been unconventional thus far , and her “ transient ” CV has perhaps prepared her for the upheaval the pandemic has wrought on the health system .
She was born to Greek parents and grew up on the remote Groote Eylandt , in the Gulf of Carpentaria , before moving to Darwin for schooling at age 14 .
Helen says that she struggled to get into uni and struggled still when she eventually did . But she went on to complete her nursing and paramedic studies in Darwin , where she was working in the Emergency Department and was involved with the Royal Darwin Hospital Response to the Bali Bombings soon after her graduation .
She is also a serial volunteer . Nursing in Iraq in IDP ( Internally Displaced Person ) Camps , in Nepal after the earthquake and Philippines after the Typhoon , as well as assisting during the Syrian refugee crisis on the border of Greece . Using her skills in tough situations has become something of an addiction : part adventure , part exercise in humanitarianism .
“ I don ’ t know how it started . I think once you start volunteering , it gets in your blood . There ’ s this really good feeling when you give . I don ’ t know how to describe it , but I feel that you actually come away receiving more than what you gave during those trips ,” she says .
“ I arrived back from Kenya mid-February and COVID was very much in the headlines . People on the plane were wearing masks . But on arrival into the country , no one even checked our temperatures , no one asked us where we ’ d been or travelled . I thought , ‘ Oh , this must not even be that bad if we ’ re just entering the country without these questions being asked or without our temperatures being checked . It can ’ t be that serious ’. A few weeks later it all unfolded , and borders closed . Literally , it was two weeks later .”
We joke about the macabre irony of a world-stopping pandemic hitting in the year of the nurse and midwife , and I tell Helen that it is perhaps what people needed to see the value of nurses and other healthcare professionals .
Fuog tells me that it was the pandemic and the values that nurses represent which inspired him to paint Helen .
“ The painting , to me , reflects the beautifully innate qualities humanity should aspire to ; care , self-sacrifice , responsibility , love , oneness ,” he says .
“ Living in Melbourne , the effects of the pandemic have been front and centre , everyone here has been through so much . The deaths are hard to take . Two lockdowns that now feel like one . Financial struggle . A virus that is unknown . But , there is a great sense of late that we as a community have done something quite amazing for each other . We had a shared goal and despite some rotten apples trying to distract us , together we achieved something extremely impressive .”
Eventually , as Helen and I warm up with the conversation and the Monday morning caffeine , she brings me back to the idea of being immortalised and getting some recognition as a nurse .
“ I don ’ t know ... When you talk about being immortalised , I just didn ’ t think of it in that way , I suppose . But I think it ’ s important .”
“ Last year , I was invited to Geneva to speak at a side event at the World Health Assembly . And I remember I was there when they announced that this year was going to be the year of the nurse and the midwife , and I felt so proud at that moment , and I was telling everyone , ‘ Yeah , I ’ m a nurse ’.”
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“ The piece is purposely harsh and hardlined … to encapsulate the seriousness of the situation .
Helen does that nurse thing : ‘ it ’ s my job ’ she says often whenever I come close to paying a complement to nurses . But Helen is a 2020 Gold Stevie award winner ( Frontline Medical Hero of the Year ), TEDx talker , World Health Assembly speaker and selfless volunteer , so she is certainly worthy of a portrait . As is any nurse . Many , like Helen , are from humble beginnings , but perhaps if nurses were a little less humble , the profession would be the better for it .
“ I don ’ t like it at all because I really feel like we ’ re doing our job , where we ’ re doing what we love , we ’ re passionate about it . I don ’ t feel ... That word “ hero ” is a really hard one for me to hear ,” she says .
And how then was it to finally see yourself , hanging there in a gallery I ask ?
“ I don ’ t know . To be honest , I don ’ t know how I felt when I first walked in . I spotted the painting as soon as I walked into the exhibition , and it was a striking picture . The colours , it was vibrant , it stood out to me , and I thought it was a really beautiful piece . I didn ’ t feel ... I don ’ t know how , actually ... I don ’ t know how .
“ So many people interpreted it differently . It ’ s interesting because you do stand there , and everyone takes something different away from it . That ’ s important , the sheer fact that we ’ re talking about [ nurses ], it ’ s raising awareness .” ■
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