Elsie Lange
Lancefield paramedic Jodie Rogers has always strived to take her skills to the places where they’re needed most.
So when she heard of an opportunity to work as a paramedic in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, she jumped at the opportunity.
Having worked in the industry for 16 years, with Ambulance Victoria and then in the private sector which took her as far as Nauru and into the Papua New Guinean highlands, she’s ready for this new challenge.
“My role when I go will be helping to distribute medical supplies from LVIV over near the polish border up to the front line,” she said.
“I will also be assisting with transporting patients from Ukrainian hospitals over to Poland, and I will teach ‘stop the bleed’ and CPR to Ukrainian citizens.
“There will be a language barrier, but the people I work with can speak English.”
She’ll be travelling to work with an organisation called SMART Medical Aid, a Ukrainian-Dutch foundation made up of medical practitioners, volunteers and industry specialists with experience in emergency and disaster medicine.
She said she was optimistic when asked if she expected to face any barriers in getting over there.
“It’s important to me, to get over there,” she said.
When a colleague showed her a photo of a former paramedic workmate and said ‘Look at this, Tony is over in Ukraine’, that Jodie knew she wanted to go too.
“I’ll be volunteering three months of my life and in the process [of making that decision] I came up with the idea to try and raise funds to purchase another ambulance for the people of Ukraine,” she said.
She started a GoFundMe page to raise the necessary funds for the ambulance – her target is $100,000 by the time she heads over next year.
“What I’ve found is a lot of people want to help [with the war] but they don’t know how,” she said.
“By starting the GoFundMe page, I thought they could help by donating $5, $10, $20, whatever they feel like donating. And then they can feel like they’ve contributed as well.”
Jodie said her family and friends think she’s “a little bit crazy”, but were 100 per cent behind her.
“We will walk the townships, hand out flyers and ask local shops,” she said.
Her message, leading up to Christmas, is for people to think about the children in Ukraine impacted by the invasion.
“I’m just asking people to have a think [about it] when they are doing their Christmas shopping,” she said.
“To think about those families over there that don’t have much, that don’t have homes, that have had to flee and relocate, those that are in hospital that need to be transported to Poland to get medical assistance.
“If you can and you’ve got a spare $5, help.”
Details: www.gofundme.com/f/ambos-for-ukraine
