Canton nurse joins HERO project in Nicaragua

Alissa Eardley, RN, spent some of her vacation days in a tropical climate last January, far from the cold weather of the Boston area. But instead of heading for the beach, Eardley and a friend flew to northern Nicaragua to volunteer for ten days with Humanitarian Efforts Reaching Out (HERO).

Alissa Eardley in Nicaragua last January

Eardley grew up in Canton and graduated from Canton High School in 2003. She earned a nursing degree at the University of Rhode Island and now works with adult patients at Tufts Medical Center. Last year she and her friend Sarah Murray, who also works as a nurse at Tufts, met the people who run HERO.

“They asked my friend and I if we were interested in going on a mission trip,” Eardley said. “We didn’t take it seriously.”

But the two friends thought about volunteering and talked it over, and eventually they called HERO. That was when they discovered that their names were already on a list of volunteers.

In January, they flew to Nicaragua with a group of 35 medical and dental professionals, veterinarians and environmentalists. They traveled to the town of Jiquillio to stay at a humanitarian resort. Each morning they packed a bus with supplies and set up clinics in different areas.

“We set up in the middle of fields,” Eardley said. “In Chinandega, we set up next to a dump. We did triage. As soon as they heard we were coming, a line would form.”

The people they treated suffered from ailments such as diabetes, malaria, hypertension and malnutrition. “They have absolutely nothing,” Eardley said. “Some of them have never seen medical care.”

The medical staff had brought equipment with them from the United States. The trees in the areas they visited have been cut down, and the lack of protection from direct sunlight affects people’s vision. Eardley learned how to run an eye machine and was quickly checking vision and then distributing eyeglasses.

“It was pretty awesome,” she said, “watching people see clearly for the first time.”

Eardley said it was a life-changing experience to visit the dump in Chinandega, where children live in extreme poverty and squalor.

“I can’t describe how devastating the conditions are that they are living in,” she said, “and how appreciative they are for the smallest things.” Eardley estimated that the staff treated a few thousand patients over the course of their ten-day trip.

Children live in extreme poverty in parts of northern Nicaragua.

Eardley plans to return to Nicaragua in March. “It’s amazing,” she said of her time in Central America. “I had always wanted to do volunteer work. I can see how people can get hooked.”

While the HERO volunteers pay for their trip, she is hoping for donations that will be used to purchase additional equipment for the mission and to support projects that have been created by HERO. An eye machine costs $300. Two thousand pairs of eyeglasses have already been donated for the upcoming March trip, and Eardley would like to take more than one eye machine to make sure that as many patients as possible receive glasses.

HERO is seeking donations for the Soup Project for children living in the dump. It costs $100 to feed a hot meal to 300 children and their families. They want to serve a hot meal once a week for a year to the children and families.

Donations can be made by going to heroefforts.org or by sending a check payable to HERO to Eardley’s mother, Shelley Eardley, 278 Norfolk Street, Canton, MA 02021.

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Posted by Mary Ann Price on Nov 14 2013. Filed under Features. Both comments and pings are currently closed.