Case Notes:
Johanna Halls
(Nursing, India )

As a mature student this trip to India represented a huge adventure for me, well outside my comfort zone.  But the ease of planning and the support of Work the World both before and on arrival eased any concerns.  The welcome that I received from fellow students was fantastic, there is a fabulous camaraderie and a great willingness to include new arrivals in travel plans and share tips for survival at work.

I was the first Mental Health student that WTW had placed, I was at The Mental Health Centre at Peroorkada, a rambling 36-acre, 28 ward Government facility.  The setting is beautiful, conducive to recovery.  The doctors that I was supervised by spoke excellent English and are very prepared to discuss cases and answer questions.  They conduct ward rounds three times a week, and are happy for you to sit in on consultations and will translate for you.  The patient notes are written in English and there’s opportunity to read and question.  Nurses are very keen to discuss their role and were surprised to learn that in the UK we train as Mental Health Nurses as in India all nurses are general trained (for four years) and further training is in-service.  They were also intrigued that I will qualify when I’m fifty and they retire at fifty-five.

Due to the language barrier, communicating with patients is not possible, but they respond well to smiles and the respectful namaste greeting.  Therefore this placement is not hands-on, but there is very much to learn and to appreciate the work that they do with very limited resources.  I witnessed remarkable levels of compassion, especially on a visit to the Welfare Department, where many of they patients have been abandoned or cannot be returned to their families, as they are unable to give their name or area that they travelled from.  Trivandrum is the end of the train line and many patients have got on the train up in the north and are then picked up by the police as wanderers, who often speak an unrecognised dialect.

The doctors here often give presentations and teaching sessions to medical or nursing students, I attended one on suicide prevention.  There is always something going on that you can ask to be involved in.

My communication skills have certainly been enhanced, along with my self- determination and ability to be pro-active, but above all the need to be patient and compassionate has really been reinforced.

Travelling around is very safe, the trains and buses are an adventure! (Ponmuddi and its 22 hairpin bends is a white-knuckle ride). The backwaters, particularly an overnight trip, is a must. The house and food are great and there are plenty of great restaurants for those occasions when you just can’t face another curry (full 3 course buffet at a 5 star hotel = £4).  My four weeks flew by; reviewing my 500 photos has kept it all alive a little longer.