Nazline – Household Aid

Nazline has been part of the Red Cross Children’s Hospital family for almost 30 years.

As a young married woman in 1994 with two small children and a husband who was struggling to find work, Nazline was determined to succeed in the interview her mother-in-law had arranged for her at the Children’s Hospital. And succeed she did. Little did she know that the job she so desperately needed at the time, would define the next three decades of her life.

“I started in Ward E2 as a general assistant. Cleaning, communicating with the parents, playing with the children, feeding the children and filling in for other staff. I was very young and active at the time.”

Red Cross household aids are the very definition of how closely interwoven the staff complement is at the Hospital. “Many people think it’s just a job, but it’s not a job, because angels are walking past you every day and you don’t see them, you don’t know. Because you’re doing a good job.”

Working at the Red Cross Hospital is a lifelong calling for Nazline. The daily impact she makes truly betters the lives of many children and parents. Nazline plays many roles: from ensuring her ward is comfortable, clean and organised for the patients, to ensuring meals are served timeously to making sure that all the daily boxes have been ticked is just the start of her job. She is also there to hold the hands of distraught parents or to hug lonely little bodies when they need it most. She is there to listen, understand, empathise and care for, but also to feel what the patients and their families feel. She carries so many people’s experiences in her heart and she has a world of love for every person the Hospital envelopes.

“Some children come in here very sick and then walk out healthy. It fills me with joy. Some children have had liver transplants and kidney transplants, but we still see them afterwards at the Day Clinic and we’re still communicating with them. We’re always happy to see one another and we hug one another. For the losses… I still pray for those parents who’ve had a loss, which is the hard part of this work. But it brings me great joy to work with the children. This is a blessing for me, not for here on earth, it’s for the heavens. This is my life, here at Red Cross Children’s Hospital.”