2020 Joan Hardy Scholarship goes to Sonja Dawson

Helena Spyrou, Union Education Organiser

Helena Spyrou, Union Education OrganiserSonja Dawson is the 2020 recipient of the Joan Hardy Scholarship for postgraduate nursing research, for her ethnographic study of humanitarian (non-disaster) nursing and nursing practice on hospital ships.

Her research is part of her work towards a PhD through the University of Technology, Sydney.

From 1994 to 2006, Sonja was a volunteer nurse on Mercy Ships. Mercy Ships (www.mercyships.org) is a global charity that offers health care services to low-middle income countries using ocean-going vessels. They are fully contained hospital ships, working alongside other agencies to offer acute and complex surgical procedures that are not obtainable in the host countries. This charity also provides education in prevention and primary health care to villages and communities, dental care, and further specialist training of National Medical/Nursing staff.

Sonja’s long-term connection to Mercy Ships began when, as a young nurse, Sonja had left Australia for a working holiday in Switzerland. While in Europe, she stumbled on the Mercy Ship, Anastasis, docked in Norway. She made her way on board for a tour of the ship and was inspired to apply.

She was so excited about the work Mercy Ships were doing that she signed up, initially for three months, and ended up doing 12 years of almost continuous voluntary service from 1994-2006.

Even though Sonja suffers from sea sickness, she speaks passionately about her motivation for social justice and her inimitable sense of adventure as impetus for doing this work.

'I put it all down to my in-utero life,' she chuckles. 'My Australian mum met and married my Swiss dad, and they returned to Australia by ship, on the SS Oriana when my mum was seven months pregnant with me.'

'I worked as a nurse on the surgical ward and it was a steep learning curve for me because in Australia, I had been an ICU nurse.'

The Anastasis had 44 beds in the ward, two operating theatres with three beds and 350 staff, with one-third being medical staff. All were volunteers and all had to pay their own way – this included crew fees, travel to the ship, insurance and living expenses.

'So, the incentive for volunteers,' says Sonja 'was to do something good in the world that could change people’s lives.

'All these nationalities coming together with all these different belief systems and living on the ship together and it works.' Says Sonja. 'Some bring their whole family and we have a school with teachers that teach the International Baccalaureate. We have engineers and tradies and cooks and librarians and cleaners. I really enjoyed being a part of families’ lives without having my own family on board.

'The Government of that country invites us to come and we send our negotiators ahead of time to talk about how the ship will conduct itself while it’s docked in the local port of the host country.'

In 2006, Sonja returned to Australia to spend time with her family and undertook further study and work. But the experience on the Anastasis was still very much alive in her memory and in 2015 she started her PhD with a focus on nursing practice on Mercy Ships. Sonja hopes to make visible, nursing in this setting and to give other nurses an understanding of what nursing practice is like on these ships.

In 2016, Sonja returned to the Mercy Ship with her husband to work as a nurse and collect data for her PhD. She says that her husband came because he wanted to know more about her experience. He loved the six months he spent on the ship with Sonja. ◆