King's Heath Army nurse Sandra Jordan begins Afghan tour of duty
Jun 2 2009 by Jonny Greatrex, Birmingham Post
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Army nurse Sandra Jordan has swapped Birmingham for Afghanistan as she begins a tour of duty caring for wounded soldiers.
The 31-year-old, from King’s Heath, is spending three months deployed at the Camp Bastion base in Helmand province.
She will treat UK and coalition troops as well as Afghan police and enemy forces. But she says she does not care about the status or role of her patients, only that they get better.
She said: “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.”
Sandra, who is a Corporal, originally joined the Territorial Army to become a field medic but transferred to the full-time section of the forces to become part of the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps.
She has now served for four and a half years, three of which were spent doing a nursing degree.
Before joining the Army Cpl Jordan, who is based at Frimley Park Hospital, in Camberley, Surrey, spent nine years as a veterinary nurse.
After going as far as she could with that career, she decided the Army was the new challenge she was seeking.
It was a move encouraged by her father who served for 27 years in the Army Physical Training Corps.
She added: “I reached the top of the ladder as a vet nurse, so I decided to do something different.
“Army nursing appealed to me.
“I joined the Queen Alexandra’s because when I was in the Territorial Army I met many people in the Nursing Corps.
“It seemed an interesting and varied career, so I decided to join.
“I’ve had a very good time so far.”
This is Cpl Jordan’s first trip to Afghanistan, where she will serve with doctors and nurses from 202 (Midlands) Field Hospital (Volunteers), a Territorial Army unit of the Army Medical Services.
Many medical staff working in Afghanistan know each other as they work in the same NHS hospitals in the UK.
Cpl Jordan’s day-to-day duties as a ward nurse at the camp will 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.
She is looking forward the challenge.
“Putting our training into practice, with all the different patients you meet on operations, is very rewarding,” she said.
“The standards in Afghanistan are second to none, they are comparable to the NHS in the UK.”
