Nurse honoured for work in Iraq

10:35am Thursday 2nd October 2008

MANY nurses would find working in Accident and Emergency in London stressful enough.

But Leytonstone resident Scott Fitzgerald, 36, who worked at the Royal London Hospital, wanted to give something more and shipped out to war torn Basra, once known as the Venice of the East, in May this year.

And as a result of his services in Iraq, he was awarded a Ministry of Defence Campaign medal, along with 15 of his colleagues.

“I was a bit embarrassed - I don’t like to stand up and say, ‘Look what I’ve done’,” Mr Fitzgerald said.

“I was very, very proud as well. I invited my sister to come as she doesn’t cry at anything, but she did this time.”

He received his medal in a ceremony in Gloucestershire at the headquarters of Frontier Medical, who hold the contract with the Ministry of Defence for sending civilian doctors and nurses to war zones.

“When I was working at the Royal London in A and E over the last few years, we had military personnel come and work with us to get an idea of the protocols we go through.

“Listening to their stories, it sounded quite interesting. I’d been working in London for years and I wanted to do something different and a bit more challenging,” he said.

And although he experienced rocket fire regularly almost as soon as he arrived in Iraq, Mr Fitzgerald said he has no regrets about going there.

From May to August, he faced everything from gunshot wounds to heatstroke with both Iraqi and British patients, sometimes working in temperatures of up to 60°C, but soon became part of the team.

“From the day I went there, my eyes were wide open and I automatically became part of something,” he said.

“You automatically get respect and give respect and I was very much part of a family.

“A lot of these guys are 18, 19, 20 but they have an incredible amount of maturity about them. There was a real camaraderie. They give up so much to go there and become brothers and sisters to each other.

“I’ll never think about Remembrance Day in the same way.”

It’s not the first time he’s done something “a bit crazy”, as he describes it.

Originally from Greenock, just outside Glasgow, growing up in a family of five brothers and four sisters, Mr Fitzgerald worked in Kenya as a missionary in 2000 and has now moved to Dubai to help improve healthcare services there.

“My family expect me to do strange things every once in a while,” he said.

“I was offered a job in a trauma centre in Dubai and the health service there is quite basic. We’re trying to get it to a higher standard.”

Visit frontiermedical.co.uk to find out about providing medical support in remote areas around the world.