A NURSE who spent the week before Christmas helping out at Calais refugee camps came back with a message of peace and understanding after seeing the deprived living conditions first hand.
Helen Mitchell, 54, is a registered nurse who works in the accident and emergency department at Warwick Hospital. The mum-of-three lives in Snitterfield and took up nursing later in life, and has a goal of helping in areas of need around the world.
“I’ve worked in healthcare for 12 years, but only qualified last April,” explains Helen. “My aim is to work for an international agency offering humanitarian help, but I need to be qualified for a few years before that. So I was just looking around for what I could do now and I found a small organisation called FAST (First Aid Support Team), who are based in Calais but also serve Dunkirk.”
Camp at Calais.
Helen paid for her own travel and accommodation, and was welcomed with open arms by charity FAST. It was started by an international group of doctors and nurses, including people from Médecins Sans Frontières (doctors without borders) to provide basic first aid provision. They welcome volunteers for a week at a time, including medical students and professionals like Helen.
Helen took holiday from her work in accident and emergency and went to do her first volunteer stint the week before Christmas to offer help to refugees in the notoriously difficult conditions of the Calais camps.
The amount of people at the camps fluctuates, but are estimated to be from 1,500 to 3,000 in the Calais/Dunkirk region. Each year since 2018 around 40,000 people cross from Calais to England. Around 95 per cent of those arriving by small boats apply for asylum in the UK.
“I went out with a field co-ordinator, a Danish woman who is based there,” continues Helen. “It was just the two of us. We were doing things like basic first aid, wound dressings and giving out vitamins, tissues, throat lozenges and Vicks.”
FAST volunteers at Calais
At one point Helen even used £10 of her own money so she could buy masses of tissues to give out, which went down well.
“We saw 200-300 people a day,” says Helen. “There were all sorts of illnesses, lots of coughs and colds and flu going around. Chicken pox was rife – people were distressed and itchy but there wasn’t a lot we could do for them.
“We dressed a lot of wounds. In the conditions it’s difficult to keep things clean, so that’s frustrating,” continues Helen. “We weren’t allowed to offer drugs or medical help other than first aid. It was really strange not having any of the stuff that we normally would have, such as antibiotics. Cleanliness is really important, and we were giving out hygiene products and toothbrushes, pots of shampoo, so that was good.
Helen Mitchell in Calais
“One man I saw had a broken wrist, so I just put a splint on it.”
Helen adds: “There is a hospital, and everyone has a right to healthcare, but it’s more complicated if you don’t have papers. So if people needed medical treatment we would refer people to the clinic called La Pass, which is open every day.”
One very common problem is frostbite – with many just having Crocs or flip-flops on bare feet in freezing conditions.
But a highlight during Helen’s visit was being able to give out socks and shoes.
“FAST works alongside Care For Calais and we helped give out 520 pairs of shoes, each with a pair of socks,” explains Helen. “It was nice it was to know they were more comfortable.”
Most of the refugees in the camps live in tents or under tarpaulins which are ripped down every few days by police.
The leader of the Green Party, Zack Polanski, visited the camps at the same time as Helen.
Backpacks used by FAST volunteers
Describing it, he says: “It was unimaginably worse than I thought it was going to be. Every 48 hours the police come and storm the campsites. They slash the tents so people can’t sleep in them; they pierce the water tanks so people can’t get fresh clean water, and they get rid of all the wood, so they are freezing.
“They are pushed into the site, and can’t go back into France – and if they get on a boat to try and cross the Channel, we know that side of the story. What I heard over and over again was the phrase, ‘I’m not allowed to stay and I can’t leave’.”
Helen felt the terrible realness of the humanitarian crisis too.
“It’s a very mobile situation, some of the camps were tiny, just a couple of families – they’re horrible places, down the bank by the railway line.
FAST’s storeroom in Calais
“We saw families with young children, toddlers and older people. There was an older woman, probably in her 70s, who was really unwell with flu.
“Most of the people we saw were from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Syria and Sudan. A lot of them are young men, because they are the ones that are fit enough to travel.
“We don’t pry and ask for their stories, but I saw signs of torture, people with self-defence wounds.”
She continues: “At one point two unaccompanied young boys, aged around 14, came up and asked, ‘Where do you get a tent from?’ It’s heartbreaking.
“Another time we saw a group in life-jackets that were wet and cold being rounded up by police, they had clearly been in a boat in the sea. One of the men had a prosthetic leg, and we helped him get dry. I just thought about how desperate he must be to risk his life.”
Helen was impressed by how vibrant and generous so many of the refugees were.
FAST’s storeroom in Calais
“We had a lot of fun. We used Google Translate to communicate so that was funny at times. They were also really supportive with each other – people would come and translate for each other. And they shared what they had, we sat around fires and were given coffee.”
Helen says she hopes to return to the camps to help again next month.
“It felt really good to be able to do something – even it’s just giving someone with a cold a tissue.”
Having seen the hardships faced by the refugees, Helen struggled to get into the festive groove.
“Coming back with Christmas and all the excess here was quite hard, it felt superficial after the camps,” explains Helen.
Conditions in Calais
“At one point we helped Care For Calais wrap up bars of chocolate to give out with a can of Coke. To me, that’s what Christmas is about, isn’t it? A simple token that gives a lift.”
Rather than seeing refugees as a threat, Helen would like to help spread a more caring view.
“I felt overwhelmingly that they were just ordinary people trying to do the best to support their families,” she says.
“People have always sought refuge – whether fleeing because of conflict or climate change, it’s human nature. People have to leave because it’s not safe or not viable to stay where they are, and they are just trying to make something of their lives.”
To donate visit www.f-a-s-t.eu.