Local clinic partners with USA’s nurses
WITKOPPEN – A non-profit organisation, Nurses with Purpose, visits different health facilities and orphanage homes in different parts of Johannesburg twice a year.
The founder of a non-profit organisation based in the United State of America (USA), Nurses with Purpose, Elaine Alston has described their organisation’s mission to South Africa as a win-win situation for local residents and American nurses.
Nurses with Purpose volunteers arrived in South Africa early this month and they would be volunteering their services at Witkoppen Clinic and other community health facilities for a period of three months. Alston said her organisation, which is based in South Carolina, visits different health facilities and orphanages in different parts of Johannesburg twice a year to work with mobile medical units and provide care to those living in disadvantaged communities.
“As an organisation that is nurse-focused, nurse-driven, and nurse-created, Nurses with Purpose offers volunteers a chance to not only help others but also experience the culture and beauty of South Africa. We visit different health facilities and orphanage homes in needy communities to lend a helping hand. Witkoppen Clinic has become a home to us and our partnership has grown from strength to strength in the past few years,” Alston said.
She added the mission, which she started in 2010 when she first visited South Africa, gives her true connection with a country she was born in before her parents moved to the USA. She said she was born in Dobsonville in Soweto and she moved with her parents when she was only five years old.
According to Alston, their mission also allows them as nurses to learn from each other.
“We come here to lend a helping hand to our colleagues, not to change or impose our way of doing things. We learn from them and they also learn from us, beyond helping it help us as nurses exchange knowledge.”
