Brave NHS workers from Bolton who all met while helping with Covid vaccinations will be heading to Ukraine to teach soldiers and civilians how to give aid during the crisis.
The mixed group of various NHS staff are led by Marta Roscoe, aged 37, from Heaton, who has been organising the trip after she had the idea to go out and help in Ukraine, who are at war with Russia.
Marta is a coordinator at Wythenshawe Hospital, at the Hootons at BWFC vaccination centre and the Etihad Mass Vaccination Centre in Manchester. She will be joined on the trip by nurses Sister Louise Crossley-Birch, Janette Butterworth, vaccinator, mental health nursing assistant Michelle Piercy and paediatric intensive care nurse Nikki Forshaw-Mahon.
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Marta said as they come to the end of their time at the vaccination centre on August 31, she realised they could use their skills to help others elsewhere. She says Ukraine seemed the natural choice and that despite it not being a topic discussed as much as it was in February "people still need help."
She says: "We have people here with so much experience - we have intensive care and leukaemia nurses. I thought to myself, 'How can we get together to do something wonderful?' I persuaded my nurses to come with me to Ukraine.
"We have been signed to help people by organising workshops - teaching people, both soldiers and civilians , how to do blood transfusions and how to do dressings, we are self funded people and we would like people to support us.
"The NHS does not send us - we are doing this absolutely for free and we are using our holiday entitlement. We are really nice, compassionate people and we are united. We felt responsibility for people in Ukraine - most of the nurses are retired, they are high up nurses that were in charge - and they said yes, of course we will go."
Marta, who is Polish, says the nurses are mainly British and Irish and says: "I am speechless at the generosity of The British People." She is already organising a later second trip, having had a positive reaction to the plans. A Go fund me page has also been set up to help. If you’d like to donate to the nurses’ GoFundMe, you can do so here.
Marta says: "We are just trying to do something to help and we appreciate any support."
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