Kiwi nurse's courage - 'IT'S THE MUMS WITH YOUNG KIDS WHO STICK WITH YOU'

Catherine is committed to caring for desperate refugees and migrants

- Dionne Christian

On a winter’s evening in 2019, Wellington nurse Catherine Flanigan crossed the deck of the Ocean Viking with a concerned look in her eyes and determination in her gait.

While other New Zealanders sailing the Mediterranean that night might have been taking a relaxing cruise, chasing the last of the summer sun and sight-seeing at historic places, Catherine, 35, was dressed in full heavy-duty marine rescue kit — complete with hard hat, headlamp and gloves — preparing to nurse women with severe burns.

Just minutes earlier, she’d been at sea on a rigid hull inflatable boat, helping to rescue dozens of refugees and migrants who had risked their lives to flee Libya in the hope of finding a better life in Europe. Then she was called back to the Ocean Viking, the ship previously used by the charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, aka Doctors Without Borders) on humanitarian missions in the Mediterranean. Two fellow medics were trying to save the life of a woman who was unresponsive because of fuel burns and Catherine was needed to help others with similar serious burns.

She says seeing the boats people leave North Africa on is heartbreaking. “They’re essentially just inflatable dinghies, often of terrible quality and so overcrowded,” she explains. “When the fuel that is tipped into the motor mixes with the sea water, it really burns the skin