Seeing a boy die in Myanmar made me so thankful to work as a nurse in the NHS

I still wonder whether he would have survived with access to treatments we would have used in the UK

The boy’s hands were very cold. He was about 13 or 14 but looked younger, with untidy dark hair. He had been bitten by a snake and was now severely unwell. He’d made it from his distant home to the intensive care unit (ICU) in Myanmar where we were working, but it didn’t seem like he’d make it out.

My previous job in the UK had involved assessing patients, and I couldn’t stop myself from examining him and thinking whether we could do anything more to help. It wasn’t our job to directly treat patients – a colleague and I had been sent to the ICU to assist with education and research – but I found it difficult to step back.

Related: 'I didn't know if he'd recover': NHS staff on the patients they'll never forget

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Od3M9b