A life dedicated to helping: Meet volunteer nurse, Naggie Tsang
Volunteer nurse Naggie Tsang has recently returned from an Operation Smile surgical programme in Morocco. After her return to the UK, Naggie sat down with us to discuss her experience with Operation Smile.
Naggie is no stranger to helping others. From a long career in paediatric nursing, to working with refugees and providing mental health support. Naggie also heads up a charity for disabled people in the Middle East. With credentials like these, it’s easy to see how volunteering for Operation Smile comes so naturally. We chatted to Naggie recently after her return from her 10th Operation Smile surgical programme in Morocco.
Changing lives all over the world
Volunteering for various organisations has taken Naggie all over the world, from jungles, slums and orphanages, to supporting patients through drug rehabilitation. She has also worked in refugee camps, providing ‘holistic care’, making use of her clinical skills as a nurse and the deep emotional intelligence that comes from years of helping others.
Naggie works as a bank nurse for the Birmingham Children’s Hospital, which gives her the flexibility she needs to attend to her volunteering and charitable work. She tells us she first heard about Operation Smile through her local church where some friends were fundraising. She’d also heard colleagues talking about the charity at work. Then, during a trip to an international book fair in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Naggie saw a fundraising stand for Operation Smile, and ran over to introduce herself. Unbeknown to her at the time, the lady she was talking to was the founder of Operation Smile UAE.
“She asked me, ‘What do you do?’ I said, ‘I’m a paediatric nurse. ICU background.’ She said, ‘We need you!’ Then she proceeded to tell me about Operation Smile nurse volunteers and the different roles they needed. She gave me contact details and really encouraged me to apply.” Naggie says.
A privilege to help
Already busy with her day job and other charitable commitments. For a moment, Naggie considered if there was time in her life for more volunteering. But her will to help others was strong, coupled with a real opportunity to change the lives of children with cleft conditions. She explains:
“At first I was thinking, ‘I’m not sure I have time!’ It’s a commitment. When I commit to something, I commit! I don’t do something half-heartedly. But that was eight years ago now and I’ve not looked back ever since.”
‘Privileged’ is the word Naggie uses to describe her involvement in the Operation Smile programmes she’s since attended across the world. She says, “I’ve been very blessed that many of the programmes I’ve been on were part of a celebratory programme. For example, it was the 25th anniversary of Operation Smile Morocco, and another one was the 30th anniversary of Operation Smile Philippines. And then I was asked to be part of the Women In Medicine Programme in Morocco.”
Happy smiles all round
Naggie is full of enthusiasm about what being a volunteer means to her. She tells us about the impact of seeing the reaction from patients and their families post-surgery:
“As soon as they come through the door with their little plasters and little babies crying. Mothers are crying. Sometimes fathers are crying. They’re not the same [after surgery]. It’s a new life. We have been part of their journey and it’s just so amazing.”
Describing the process for discharging patients after surgery, Naggie recalls a memory from Malawi when a group of mothers started singing in celebration of their children’s new smiles:
Photo: Margherita Mirabella.
Their voices are beautiful. Just the joy, and the faces are so beautiful. And then one of the mothers started leading the other mothers into a song, and it was so rhythmic they were dancing. They were clapping. We got involved as well. It was just so beautiful and each time seeing happy smiles, going back to a different life, no longer being ostracised by the community. No longer being looked at and labelled ‘ugly’ or ‘monster’. These things I find most precious.
Naggie Tsang
A happy event to remember
Screening day on surgical programmes is also a favourite time for Naggie, “This is the day we get to meet all of the new families,” she tells us, “everyone is so hopeful that this is an opportunity for a life-changing, life-saving intervention. It’s such a privilege to be part of that.”
Over the years, Naggie has met so many patients and their families. We ask her to pick just one memory from her experience that really stands out. She tells us about a 55-year-old man who arrived for screening in Morocco:
“He had a cleft lip. We asked him if he smoked and he said yes and told us how many cigarettes he smoked a day. We told him unfortunately this meant that surgery was not possible for him because the nicotine breaks down the surgical glue that the surgeons use, and his cleft lip would just open up again.
“When he heard that he said, ‘No! I’m gonna stop smoking. From today!’ We were like, ‘Oh of course!’ Come on, that’s impossible. But he did. And when he arrived for surgery, we asked him if he had smoked again since the screening day which was a few days ago. He said no, and I believed him because there was no smell of nicotine and the look on his face was so hopeful.
“After the surgery, when he woke up, he cried. When he saw his new face. He lived locally so all his family members came. All his neighbours came. Everyone was crying of course. That really affects us because it’s such a happy event.
“But then he revealed something so special. He will now be able to attend his daughter’s wedding, which previously he wasn’t going to go to. And that was just so touching. To imagine that a dad was going to miss his daughter’s wedding. And now he can go with his head held up high. So proud, beaming. It was just such a wonderful thing, still brings tears to me.”
Education is a blessing to be shared
Naggie tells us she can’t imagine Operation Smile not being a part of her life now. On most programmes Naggie works the night shift, using her experience as an ICU nurse. This means she usually misses out on the opportunity to socialise with other volunteers, or explore the local area. But this doesn’t concern Naggie, she says, “I’m there for the patients. This is my little bit to contribute to these beautiful people in this country for this time.”
“I love to do teaching and so one thing that I feel that I can give to the local nurses and to the families is teaching. I’m blessed to have been educated here in the UK. I’m originally from Hong Kong. I came as a child. So I understand that adapting to new things, adapting to new cultures, new is not easy. My family have been through that. I’m very invested whenever I’m on surgical programmes. I love to meet the international team members. We all learn from each other.”
Working with her ‘sisters in surgery’ as she calls them, on Operation Smile Morocco’s Women In Medicine Programme, has also been an inspiration for Naggie. She explains:
The atmosphere is different to that of a normal surgical programme because we’re all so excited that we as women, have been, I guess, in a way, hand-picked and we are now going to show the world that we as women are not dumb. We do. We are highly skilled. We are able. The atmosphere was just electric. Everyone had something positive to share about this, about their own career, about their journey with Operation Smile. The encouragement lasts a lifetime.
Naggie Tsang
It has been a pleasure talking to Naggie and we’re in no doubt that her selfless efforts to teach, inspire, and care for others around the world will leave a lasting impact on so many lives.