The Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — Melissa Uchitelle-Rogers is no stranger to intense medical situations.

A nurse at Yampa Valley Medical Center, Uchitelle-Rogers traveled to a small town on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in fall 2005, days after Hurricane Katrina swept through the region. There were hardly any medical supplies, and help from the American Red Cross hadn’t arrived. Nurses spent their time doing what they could and tried to secure supplies from a nearby Waffle House.

“We had people that were getting their IV medications while they were lying on the floor. It was just really intense,” Uchitelle-Rogers said.

“What I took away (from that experience) is that so much of nursing care is from the heart and from the soul, and a hug can really go a long way toward helping somebody out when you really don’t have a lot to share at that time,” she said.

Uchitelle-Rogers will take that experience with her in late June on a three-week nursing trip to Ethiopia with the nonprofit organization Nurses With Purpose. The group will start with a week of teaching basic nursing skills at a hospital in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia and the country’s largest city. From there, volunteer nurses will give immunizations at a field clinic and work in an orphanage for children whose parents have died as a result of AIDS.

“I’ve always had an interest and just a passion to do this kind of work,” Uchitelle-Rogers said. Much of her work in Ethiopia will be in basic care and health education, and Uchitelle-Rogers hopes to benefit from the cultural exchange of living in villagers’ homes, she said.

Because Nurses With Pur­pose is a volunteer organization, Uchitelle-Rogers must raise $2,900 to cover the cost of the trip, and she is looking for community support. The money goes to Nurses With Purpose and covers two meals a day, housing, airfare, ground transportation, medications for use in Ethiopian clinics and other expenses.

Cindy Remillard, a nurse at YVMC who works with Uchitelle-Rogers, is helping in the fundraising effort by hosting a garage sale at her house Saturday. She said Uchitelle-Rogers is a caring, compassionate nurse.

“She’s just a wonderful person. She’s a very good nurse, and they’re lucky to have her,” Remillard said. “And she’s lucky to get to go. I think it’ll be a very good opportunity for her to learn from as well.”

Uchitelle-Rogers said she expects the trip to Ethiopia will be as much a learning experience for her as it will be for the locals she hopes to educate.

“I think it’s going to be very intense; I know that there’ll be a lot of sorrow. But I know that there will be a lot of joy, too, and I’m expecting to learn a lot from the people I meet there, and learn from them how to find joy in everyday things,” she said.

“I just am going with the attitude of letting anything that’s going to come my way just come my way. I’m there for a good purpose, and I’m hoping to make a difference even if it’s just for one day in someone’s life.”

— To reach Margaret Hair, call 871-4204

or e-mail mhair@steamboatpilot.com.