Army nurse deploys to Helmand for her first operational tour

For her first operational deployment, Army nurse Corporal Sandra Jordan has travelled to Helmand province where she is a working as a Ward Nurse in the Camp Bastion Hospital.

At Camp Bastion she is serving alongside doctors and nurses from 202 (Midlands) Field Hospital (Volunteers), a TA unit of the Army Medical Services. She says:

"The majority of doctors and nurses here in Afghanistan are TA. We all work well together because we all work in the same NHS hospitals back home."

Her day-to-day duties as a Ward Nurse at Camp Bastion Hospital include the feeding, washing, dressing change and general care of patients, ward administration, maintaining medical stock levels, taking of bloods and movement of patients around the hospital:

"Working at the hospital at Camp Bastion is a great experience," she says.

"Putting our training into practice, with all the different patients you meet on operations, is very rewarding. And, the standards here are second to none - they're comparable to the NHS in the UK."

The medics at Camp Bastion's Hospital treat UK and coalition force soldiers, Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police personnel, as well as Afghan civilians and enemy forces. Cpl Jordan says:

"I prefer not to know who patients are and what they do. It helps me treat everyone just the same and do my job professionally nursing them back to health. I love what I do."

She has served in the Army for four-and-a-half years, three of which were spent studying for a degree to qualify as a Nurse. Prior to joining the Army, she was a veterinary nurse for nine years:

"I reached the top of the ladder as a vet nurse, so I decided to do something different. Army nursing appealed to me," she says.