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About Cannon Beach gazette. (Cannon Beach, Or.) 1977-current | View Entire Issue (May 18, 2018)
May 18, 2018 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com • 7A Luck and circumstance Cannon Beach nurse reflects on a lifetime of care FLOORING CCB# 205283 y ou ou r r w ep alk ut o at n io n By Brenna Visser Cannon Beach Gazette t first glance, serving peo- ple in Clatsop County versus those in a refugee camp on the other side of the world seem to have little cross- over. But Margo Lalich, a long- time nurse and public health worker based in Cannon Beach, has spent much of her time doing both. Her most re- cent trip to serve Rohingya ref- ugee camps in Bangladesh illu- minated that common ground. “(Working at a refugee camp) sounds heroic and ro- mantic, but it’s not that com- plicated when you recognize the humanity in one another. In some ways, we all come from the same place: suffering,” she said. “When I look at a child in a shelter, or I see people who lost children in the migration, or lost a child to diphtheria, I see myself as a mother and I see my children. Those fami- lies go into shelters of tarps and bamboo sticks and they make it their home. “When we put aside the pol- itics, and the religion, you’re just helping mothers, fathers and children.” Last fall, Lalich spent a month at the Nayapara and Kutupalong refugee camps through Medical Team Inter- national. The nonprofit helps recruit and train local health care workers on proper sani- tation, preventing the spread of disease and supporting safe home births. As of April, there are more than 781,000 Rohingya refu- gees living in camps and settle- ments, according to the BBC. The Rohingya, an ethnic Mus- lim minority, have been driven out of their home country of Myanmar since 2015 due to re- ligious persecution. For the past 20 years, Lalich has interwoven a local career in public health with frequent trips to volunteer at refugee camps around the world. Her life reflects a blended passion for connecting with other cul- tures and health care, two ideas both deeply rooted in her up- bringing. A Child of ‘adventurers’ Born in Liberia, Lalich was the child of “adventurers,” as she called them, who met in Greece during her mother’s stint working with Hungari- an refugees in Europe in the 1950s. Over the course of her childhood, Lalich grew to love learning about different cul- tures and experiences. Lalich decided to study so- ciology at the University of Washington. But as she stud- ied, she couldn’t help but long for travel. To help finance her adven- tures, she worked as a fisher- man in Alaska, where she met the father of her children — the man she eventually moved to Clatsop County for in 1987. She received a nursing degree from Clatsop Community Col- lege and began work as a nurse at Providence Seaside Hospi- tal for 10 years before joining the county in 1998 as a public health nurse. “I’ve always had a passion for public health,” she said. Flooring Installation 3470 Hwy 101 Suite 102 • Gearhart, Oregon 503.739.7577 • carpetcornergearhart.com CONSTRUCTION B oB M c E wan c onstruction , inc . E xcavation • u ndErground u tiitiEs r oad w ork • F ill M atErial s itE P rEParation • r ock owned and operated by M ike and C eline M C e wan 503-738-3569 PHOTOS MARGO LALICH Women community health workers demonstrate hand washing as part of the health educa- tion program for families at a refugee camp in Bangladesh. 34154 Hwy 26, Seaside, OR P.O. 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Lalich stepped down in 2013 to pursue an opportunity to be the director of the Mult- nomah Education Service Dis- trict. She found her experience working out in the field as a significant asset while address- ing emergency management at home. “It’s really informed my practice. We have a very cum- bersome system of practice in this country. When you work in other places that aren’t bur- dened by complexities, you get to focus on the issues,” she said. “Emergency response is a perfect example. Here it is so complex, we make so many as- sumptions. And yet you can do a lot to take care of a lot people. Our expectations are just high- PAINTING Margo Lalich, a public health nurse who lives in Cannon Beach, has cared for people in refugee camps. er here. Keeping that in per- spective is a tremendous asset.” Daunting scale Some aspects of working abroad will always be differ- ent. The sheer scale of people who need treatment at one time is daunting. Some of the most specific challenges to treating public health in camps are the lack of public infrastructure and dangerously low vaccina- tion rates for preventable dis- eases. “People are dying on a daily basis from things we don’t even think about here,” she said. But to Lalich, her passion to serve is driven by a belief that human suffering doesn’t have borders. “I’m aware that I’m in a different environment. But we see trauma in our own commu- nities — it just presents differ- ently,” she said. “I guess I feel like a chameleon: I deploy and I adapt. I feel like I’m coming home when I deploy. I’m not thinking about lack of resourc- es, or my discomfort. I just see what is in front of me and what needs to be done.” Last trip After 20 years, Lalich de- cided to make her trip to Ban- gladesh her last. After 30 years of living in Clatsop County, she intends to move away from Cannon Beach to pursue more indepen- dent projects related to public health. 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