Nursing students bring aid to Ghana

Local woman launches mission

While researching service-learning programs for the medical profession last February, Brianna Norton of Chelmsford came across options for physicians and nurses - but nothing for nursing students like herself. So she created one at her school.

Norton, founder and president of Nursing Students Without Borders, recently traveled to Ghana with 10 fellow senior nursing students at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell: Melanie Burgess, Charly Darius, and Katie Hutton of Methuen; Ashley Hoefer of Tewksbury; Kathleen Garabedian of Pepperell; Lauren Lynch of Charlestown; Maggie Murphy of Andover; Sarah Merullo of Wakefield; Erin Kane of Dracut; and Heather Dwan of Newburyport. The group was led by assistant professor Valerie King of Chelmsford, who is a nurse practitioner, and Brianna's mother, Maura Norton of Chelmsford, a UMass-Lowell nursing alumna.

According to Norton, the participants packed their belongings in carry-ons so they could devote their checked luggage to transporting donated medications, supplies, and clothing. During their 18-day trip to Kpando, Torkor, and Nkonya, the students visited an orphanage and conducted HIV and general health clinics.

A Broader View Volunteers, the nonprofit organization based in Pennsylvania, acted as a liaison to the students.

Although the group expected to encounter poverty, Norton said the students were unprepared for its magnitude. Homes had walls made of cinderblock or mud - and, in at least one case, tin cans. Many children didn't have shoes or enough clothing. Chickens and goats walked freely amid trash-strewn yards, and raw sewage filled open trenches running along the side of the streets.

In addition to finding an alarmingly high rate of elevated blood pressure, the students were surprised to learn they needed to provide education about how the HIV virus is contracted, as well as the importance of hand-washing and protecting the water supply from contaminants.

"I got the ball rolling, but everyone was equally dedicated in putting our hearts and souls into the work we did," Norton said. "It was very hard to leave after getting a taste for how much more there is to be done. There's no question in my mind I'll go back."

Cindy Cantrell