April 2005

Nurse’s labours of love

being there—Nursing at Victoria’s First Hospital ‘The Melbourne’ author Sue Sherson is part of history herself.

Her matron called her on night duty way back in 1964 and asked if she wanted to be part of the first Australian medical team to spend a year in South Vietnam helping civilian patients in that war-torn country.

Without hesitation she agreed to go even though—she admits now—she had no clear idea at the time where Vietnam was.

‘I had to look it up in my school atlas,’ said Sue with a chuckle, her eyes sparkling as she recalled her excitement as the youngest member of the hospital’s surgical team arriving in Vietnam on October 4, 1964.

Sue described the time in the Long-Xuyen hospital on the Mekong Delta as the ‘most amazing, memorable experience of my life.’

Her account of her year in Vietnam was set out in House of Love—the Vietnamese word for hospital means house of love.

The book was published in 1966 when the war in Vietnam was provoking widespread interest and debate in Australia and around the world.

Sue was just 24 years at the time.

So powerful was the experience on Sue as a young nurse that she and other members of the team knew they would one day return to Vietnam, though the thought of the devastation and the ravages of the war delayed the return trip for many years.

Last year, the plans for the return trip finally crystallised and, without consciously planning it that way, Sue and three other nurses from the Royal Melbourne Hospital surgical teams found themselves back in Vietnam on October 4—40 years to the day since the first team’s arrival back in 1964.

Incredibly, too, they found the Long Xuyen hospital still standing—and the spirit of the Vietnamese people as indomitable as ever.

‘It was an absolute thrill to be back there and to see what a dynamic and positive place Vietnam is today and to find the people as warm and wonderful as we found them back in 1964.

‘They still have a great sense of humour,’ said Sue.

The three nurses who accompanied Sue (nee Terry) were Anne Lindley (Long Xuyen and Bien Hoa teams), Beth Bruce (nee Thredgold, Long Xuyen team) and Fiona Bird (Bien Hoa team).

Other members of the first 1964 team were Scotty Macleish (surgeon and leader), Jim Villiers (anaesthetist), Tim Mathews (medical registrar), Noelle Courtney (radiographer) and Anne Boucher and Jenny Jones (theatre nurses).

Sue is the only member of the original surgical team still at Royal Melbourne Hospital and is involved in nurse education and support, as well as being Chair of the Hospital’s Clinical Ethics Committee.