A decade of dedication

In her day job, Lindsay’s a senior operating theatre staff nurse at a private hospital in Bury St Edmunds. Prior to that she worked at West Suffolk Hospital, which is where she met consultant anaesthetist (and long-standing Operation Smile volunteer) Dr Clive Duke. Lindsay was inspired by hearing about his experiences of Operation Smile surgical programmes – she tells us:  

“He would come back from surgical programmes with his laptop and show me the photos and tell me all about it. At the time, my children weren’t quite old enough to leave behind, but as soon as they were, I thought, ‘I really want to do this!’ And so I emailed, filled out the forms and hounded Operation Smile UK until I was able to get onto my first surgical programme in Hanoi, Vietnam. I haven’t looked back since!” 

The Hanoi programme was an anniversary event for Operation Smile, and the celebrations were marked with the filming of a video in which Lindsay also made her debut. In the video Lindsay describes her first programme as ‘amazing’ and an ‘emotional journey’. The joy of seeing the life-changing impact of surgery on the children and their families is clearly visible when Lindsay talks, both back then and today in our interview. 

The reward of seeing firsthand, the life-changing impact of surgery on the children and their families is clearly written on Lindsay’s face as she talks, this is what keeps her coming back for more, she says: “After Hanoi, I almost immediately tried to book on to the next and the next and the next!” 

In May this year, Lindsay went to the Philippines to take part in a surgical programme in Batangas. She tells us: 

“It was quite a large-scale surgical programme. We operated on around 90 patients during our time there. It was a beautiful place, and the Filipino people are incredibly warm and welcoming. It was a very positive experience. Safety was paramount, and everybody was so accommodating.” 

Back in the UK, Lindsay is often involved with training and education, putting her years of NHS experience to good use. In addition to her senior nursing role, she’s also a trained surgical first assistant, which means she can assist surgeons in the operating theatre. In the Philippines. Lindsay trained local student nurses and medical students during the programme, to tackle a shortage of scrub nurses in theatre. 

We ask Lindsay to describe what she enjoys most about her role as a volunteer.  The list is long, but it comes down once again, to witnessing the impact on the families we serve. Often the families Lindsay meets have previously had no hope of affording surgery. They may not even have known that surgery was possible before finding out about Operation Smile. 

“I love meeting the families for the first time. I love the whole screening process. It’s so important for families to feel comfortable with what’s happening and to know what to expect. Afterwards, seeing them so thankful, so grateful, crying with emotion. That’s what we’re there for, and it’s an amazing feeling.” 

Operation Smile has a stringent screening process for patients to make sure that they are healthy enough for surgery and ultimately to keep them safe. During this process, medical volunteers sometimes have the difficult task of explaining to families that their loved one can’t have surgery. This might be because they’re not well enough (due to an illness) or perhaps because they have other health complications (like a heart condition) which would need specialist treatment. We ask Jackie to explain how it feels to be involved in these emotionally challenging moments: 

“it’s always been very difficult, but what makes me feel better is that I know that even if a child is not a candidate for surgery, for whatever reason, that the child will still go through the full screening process and I know that they will be either directed in the right path to get them ready for a future surgical programme, or if they’re not a candidate for surgery, then they’ll be pointed in the right direction to find the appropriate specialist. We sometimes get hopeful families turning up with things not related to cleft conditions like a growth or tumour, but they’re still looked after and supported to find the treatment they need which makes me feel better.”  

There’s often a particular patient whose story is etched in the memory for many of our medical volunteers and Lindsay tells us about a young girl in Ghana. 

“I remember the little girl’s father had rejected the child because of her cleft condition, and she wasn’t healthy enough for surgery the first time I saw her. It was heartbreaking as her family were splitting apart because of it. And then the next time we went to Ghana, we saw her again and then finally this child got her surgery, and it was like a fix not only to the child and the mother, but also to the whole family. There’s a lot of misunderstanding about cleft conditions and they believe all sorts of things about why a cleft happens. I’ve seen lots of photos now of that same little girl, all grown up. It’s an amazing story and one I will never forget.” 

Lindsay says volunteering has opened her eyes to how fortunate we are in the UK to have an NHS and the health services many of us take for granted, she explains: 

“I go back to my workplace, and I’ve introduced new systems for waste management because I was inspired by how little we waste on Operation Smile surgical programmes. It makes me really appreciate everything we have. I try not to preach at work, but I want to make people realise that opening that extra suture, and then having to throw it away unused, is not acceptable.  

“It just makes me feel grateful and glad for what we have here. I leave a surgical programme feeling like I’ve got new eyes. Like I’ve got something in my heart. That’s very special.”   

Our sincere thanks to Lindsay for taking the time to talk to us, and for her years of dedication to Operation Smile. We look forward to seeing where the future takes her and to the many more new smiles she’ll help make possible.