Robin Mason: Fiona Jackson - Ethiopian Journey

  The Rotary Club had an illustrated talk from an "angel of mercy" at last week's meeting when President Scott Elliot introduced local nurse Fiona Jackson to the club.  Fiona, who is employed on nurse's training at the BGH is a volunteer with "Facing Africa, 2012" and travels regularly to Ethiopia, Horn of Africa, to treat victims of Noma, a condition which infects facial skin and tissue resulting in the infected part being eaten away.  There are 140,000 victims a year in Ethiopia with a survival rate of 10%.  Victims can be castigated and withdrawn and are inclined to remove themselves from mainstream living which escalates the problem.  She goes as part of a team of surgeons, anaethetists and nurses to carry out plastic surgery on victims.  There is also a teaching programme to encourage native nurses to learn the procedures.  The charity "Facing Africa" raises money to go to Ethiopia to treat patients who are normally found in isolated rural areas.  The team's first task is to trace and identify victims, have them assessed and collected in readiness for the surgeons and treatment teams to come in and treat them.  The work is arduous and obviously distressing at times but also very worthwhile espcially when progress can be seen to be made.  She related the case of a young man who, instead of having a nose and mouth, only had a hole where he shoved food in.  He was treated with plastic surgery and it was gratifying to later see him able to eat and drink normally which he had previously been unable to do and live a more normal life.  Many questions arose from her talk after which Robin Mason gave the vote of thanks and said that the whole team Fiona worked with were indeed "angels of mercy."