Nurses helping nurses: scrub drive for Nicaragua

Fort Worth, TX

12/3/2009

By Allison Marshall, Schieffer School of Journalism

“Live to Love and therefore Love to Live.” After one trip to Nicaragua, Ayla Landry, senior TCU nursing student from Austin, Texas, came up with that saying and it is now the motto that drives her to continue the mission to help improve the health care system in Nicaragua.

Always knowing she wanted to practice international nursing, Landry found her place and future job while on a mission trip to Nicaragua. The second poorest country in the western hemisphere and a short four-hour plane ride from TCU, Nicaragua lacks what Landry and fellow nursing students take advantage of everyday: a nursing school with adequate supplies and trained professors.

While on her trip, Landry met a woman who had the idea of opening just that. After much effort, a board was created and the idea of a nursing school in Nicaragua turned into reality. With a huge nursing shortage, 3.6 nurses for every 10 thousand people, the project is hoping to produce nurses who will be the life changing differences in the Nicaraguan health care system.

After much consideration, Landry joined the board for the nursing school. She will graduate in May and move to Nicaragua to continue the mission.

As a TCU student, she was determined to get TCU and Harris College of Nurses & Health Sciences involved. With the high demand for all types of supplies, a scrub drive seemed the perfect solution for collecting scrubs and other equipment needed for the nursing school.

Almost a year later since her first trip in December 2008, more than 350 items have been donated. “My professors and the TCU community as a whole have been very generous in donating their extra supplies and time to help this cause,” Landry said.

Everything from scrubs to entire lab bags have been collected. Landry used fliers and heart-warming pictures to advertise the drive, which have been a huge success.

With a huge medical supply shortage in Nicaragua, “having enough” is non-existent. As Landry continues to prepare for this amazing project, she is eager to keep TCU involved. She says since the nursing school is still in the early steps and any type of help is welcomed. Until she leaves this summer, she plans to collect even more supplies and educate her fellow nursing students with the idea of “nurses helping nurses.”

With the hope to help create a school that will give nurses the chance to change the quality of life for all patients, donating to the scrub drive for Nicaragua is an easy way to make a big impact she said. Already receiving huge amounts of supplies, Landry is excited to share her schools donations with people in need.