Nurse Toughest Place to be a...

This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

Three British workers, a ferryman a miner and a nurse.

They've all accepted the challenge to do their job

under the most stressful and dangerous conditions on the planet.

They must be a really hard, hard people here

to be able to cope with this.

At home, we'd shut the department, you know.

People wouldn't come back to work.

This is gun-down mining, this is.

It's really dangerous. REALLY dangerous.

Emergency nurse Maria Connolly is leaving

her job at the Royal Hospital, Preston,

to work in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

She'll find a city engulfed in a brutal gang war...

Do we know if it's a gun or a knife?

Where doctors and nurses are targets

and have to be protected by armed guards.

I have never seen so many guns. Never ever.

And she'll witness first-hand what it's like to live and work

in a city with one of the highest murder rates in the world.

He's dead. There's nothing they can do.

41-year-old Maria Connolly

is a sister at the Royal Hospital in Preston.

Did you remember what happened this morning, Lawson?

You haven't got a clue? No?

'I love nursing. I love looking after people. You're sharing quite a...'

a sort of private and often difficult time with people,

and it's just quite a privilege to share that.

Right. Just straighten your arm again for me.

Just do what you got to do, dear.

-You're a perfect patient.

-Yeah?

The nurses here treat an average of 200 people a day,

most of them for minor complaints.

One, two, three.

There we go.

But for life-threatening conditions,

Maria and her experienced team swing into action.

Say, for example, if it was a cardiac arrest,

I would say, "Right. Somebody in charge of airway,

"let's have somebody in charge of the defib,

"let's have somebody who's going to be in charge

"of doing compressions."

You start on one job and we work as a team.

Preston A&E department is a Level 1 Trauma Centre

with four high-tech resus bays.

'Nursing without all the equipment that we have, I think I'd be lost.'

You can just see, at a glance, that all their observations are OK.

You can see the heart rate,

you can check, you know, they're getting plenty of oxygen

and that they're well.

'Obviously, we get people that die.

'If you can't deal with death and dying,'

you shouldn't really be in a health profession, really.

It does happen. It's a fact of life.

In a few days, Maria's heading for Ciudad Juarez in Mexico,

a city where death is very much a fact of life.

The murder rate there is up to 100 times higher

than in Maria's home town of Manchester.

'Living on my own in the city, I never feel'

scared or frightened for my sort of safety.

'I run. I do a lot of running round Manchester.

'The areas that I run round, they're not picturesque.

'They're quite sort of cityscape runs, but I feel'

really safe and I can, you know, jog at night.

'I feel confident to do anything, anything I want to do.'

I enjoy city living.

I think it suits my kind of lifestyle

because I'm single, got friends who live in Manchester

and everything's on my doorstep, really.

'I'm quite laid-back,

'quite a relaxed person, quite happy person.'

-ALL:

-Cheers!

'I like being around people

'and like spending time with friends, my family,

'and just generally quite sociable, I think.'

LAUGHTER

Does that sound OK?

Out of all of us at work,

if we have to say who was going to go, it would be Maria.

She's got an adventurous spirit.

Any stories that I've heard

since I found out where I'm going, it's all been about people

being killed, basically.

When I read about it,

I was quite shocked about the murder statistics

and the drugs and the crime levels.

I thought, "Oh my God! You can't go there!"

And I thought of texting you to say, "You have to pull out!"

'Don't know what to expect, really,'

so I think that makes me more fearful, really.

I know when I get there,

I'll either be more relaxed or I'll turn around and go home.

LAUGHS

Ciudad Juarez,

a city of one million people on the Mexican-US Border.

It's a battleground for powerful Mexican drug cartels

that traffic cocaine and cannabis to America.

These ultra violent gangs

are fighting to control a trade worth billions of dollars.

Hundreds of police officers have been murdered.

It's a world where multiple executions,

torture and kidnapping have become a fact of everyday life.

Since 2008, Juarez has been a far more

dangerous city than even Baghdad,

with 10,000 people murdered on the streets.

SHE SCREAMS

Just thought

the streets'd be empty and you'd have this sense of...'

..of kind of danger or fear.

In that sense, it just feels like a sort of normal city.

Juarez General is the only public hospital in the city.

It treats thousands of people caught up in the violence.

For the next two weeks,

Maria will be working in the A&E department,

joining the nurses on the front line of the drugs war.

-Pablo?

-Hola!

-Hola!

-Que tal?

-Buenas noches.

-Buenas noches.

-Mucho gusto.

-Como estas?

Buen, buen...

Maria's host is auxiliary nurse Pablo Vasquez.

He's been working the night shift in A&E for six years.

On the surface, Juarez General is a hospital like any other.

Do you do this? Do you put the casts on?

But there are stark differences from Britain's NHS.

For a start, the emergency care budget in Preston

is 12 times bigger than at Juarez General.

What's this lady's name?

-Evitte.

-Evitte?

Here, even taking a patient's blood pressure

means getting back to basics.

We do use manual BPs at home, but...

..I haven't.. Gosh, yeah!

Hardly ever used them, so I'll give it a go.

Nurses here can't rely on state-of-the-art technology.

Compared to Britain,

the treatment is basic.

Juarez General has no CT scanner,

no MRI and just one resus bed for life-threatening conditions.

'My first impressions, walking in,

'it just doesn't feel very clinical. It feels just so...

'kind of just basic, really.'

'Just, like, you know, metal beds with sort of really

'thin mattresses and...

'and no equipment.'

Yeah, it's just very different.

It's not long before the first emergency arrives.

It isn't clear what's happened to him, but the man isn't breathing.

-Do you want me to take over in a second?

-OK.

It's a race against time to try and resuscitate him.

Despite their efforts, the patient is not responding.

When would you decide that you'd call it?

-15 to 20 minutes.

-You'd always do 15 to 20 minutes?

Yeah. Yeah, mostly. 15, 20.

The man has died.

But in Juarez General, there is little time to stand on ceremony.

With another emergency arriving,

the dead man will have to be moved out of resus.

As usual, the hospital morgue is full.

'When they needed to make room,'

they just sort of moved him into a bay

with other patients just sitting in there.

So, that's just really... yeah, really weird.

'He's been wheeled around quite a few places.

They do care, you know. They're doing everything they can.

All the equipment, all the drugs that they have, you know, they're using.

But yeah, I think that must just come...

That attitude must just come with

a kind of daily occurrence of lots of death.

It's almost kind of, "Right, OK. Package up and OK!"

Not even a mention of what's happened.

The man was found on the street and has no ID.

What happens now with this gentleman?

Sad.

So far, it's been a quiet night

and now Pablo has some time to show Maria the department's records.

-So, every patient?

-Todo. Everybody. Todo.

-Everybody?

-Mm-hmm.

-OK.

There's lots of gunshot wounds and stabbings on every page.

And is this just this month?

-They came in here? Through there?

-Si.

-And they come in with guns?

-Mm-hmm.

Did anyone stop them? What happened?

HE LAUGHS

You just laugh about it!

With the threat of gangsters roaming the hospital,

it is now patrolled 24 hours a day by heavily armed guards.

'Think we'd be offered counselling if somebody kind of shouted'

really loudly in our face, you know. You'd kind of...

You'd be allowed a few days off, and possibly more.

But that?!

We'd shut the department, you know. People wouldn't come back to work.

It's just before midnight

and Maria is about to get her first experience of violence in Juarez.

GIRL WAILS

A teenage girl has been shot through the neck.

The doctors are worried she's paralysed.

Can she move her feet?

The bullet passed straight through her neck, just missing an artery.

Does she know why?

The girl faces a long road to recovery.

Her friend was not so lucky, shot dead in the street

for not joining a gang.

Not everyone who comes to the hospital is an innocent victim.

A man arrives at A&E in an agitated state.

He's been stabbed three times in the back.

Shall I check his sats? Maybe he's OK?

-Oxygen.

-Oxygen?

-Si, si.

Shall we put something on the...?

Do you have, like, a dressing for...?

These?

Just having a look at the wounds.

They look quite superficial.

Doesn't look like he's had lots of blood loss,

but they're just checking his blood pressure and his pulse.

They've taken all his clothes off so they can just see if there's any more

stab wounds that, you know, we've missed.

But I think they're just quite superficial.

But I think he's obviously really anxious and worked up

cos he's just come from something horrible.

The man gives his name as Alfredo.

His tattoos show membership of a notorious street gang

called the Aztecas, the foot soldiers

of the Juarez drug cartel.

What's happened to you tonight? What happened?

Has this happened before?

These are gunshots?

And how old were you when this happened?

Have you got any family?

Juarez wasn't always like this.

Ten years ago, it was just another border town, with factories making

cheap goods for America,

and bars and clubs catering for the tourist trade.

The drug traffickers controlled their own territories

and paid off the local police.

But in 2006,

the Mexican Government launched a war on drugs,

trying to crush the cartels with thousands of troops

and federal police.

It didn't work.

Violence erupted along the border.

In Juarez, the chaos led to a vicious three-way war

between rival cartels and the authorities.

The bloodshed has left no-one untouched.

For her first few nights in Juarez,

Maria will be staying with Pablo and his family at his house

in one of the huge ramshackle suburbs of the city.

Wow!

Ah, it's beautiful!

SHE LAUGHS

-You're all inside! Hola!

-Hola!

-Hola!

Hola.

Hola.

-Como esta?

-Buen. Buen.

Hi. Nice to meet you.

-Hi.

-Hi. Pablo.

-Mucho gusto.

-Mucho gusto.

-Mucho gusto.

LAUGHTER

Pablo and Elvira met as teenagers,

and they've been married for 21 years.

HE RECITES GRACE

-It's salsa.

-Ah! I've got some. Ah, OK!

-I can see the chillies.

-It's hot!

-I can see chillies in here, yeah!

Maria has been up for over 24 hours,

and it's time for bed.

Pablo, who I've been working with, has been amazing.

He's just really funny and laughs at everything.

I think he felt that...

He worried I thought he wasn't sensitive,

but he's sensitive. He is. He's lovely.

He is really caring, but as he said, it's just his way of coping.

And some of the stories he's told me about already, you know,

people coming into the department and shooting people.

You'd have to have a coping strategy to keep working there.

I'm glad I've kind of done the shift already and I'm a bit prepared.

I think I'll be...

I won't find it as difficult cos I'll know what to expect.

Yeah. Try and get stuck in.

So, I'm going to go to bed. Good night.

It's 8pm, time for the next nightshift.

Working nights means leaving the house in darkness,

the most dangerous time in the city.

Precautions are essential.

Does that happen? Have nurses been kidnapped on the way to work?

Gosh.

And is it dangerous when you actually get to work?

I can't imagine having to think about all of that.

I'm just straight down the motorway, don't have to think of anything,

just, "Have I got enough petrol?" That's about it.

And, "Can I get a space to park at work?" And then I'm in.

It's the easiest part of my day.

It's Maria's second shift

and two severely-injured teenagers have arrived in A&E.

OK, so it's his pelvis. Si?

Can you straighten your arm?

MAN SPEAKS IN SPANISH

There's been a really bad train crash.

These two guys have just been brought in to us.

They were on the top of the train

and trying to smuggle themselves into America.

Back home, these blokes would have come into resus

and there just isn't the room here.

They'd have had all the equipment that we've got to use.

You know, we'd have got X-rays done in resus.

They'd have probably had ultrasound scans

to make sure there's no internal bleeding as well,

so we've just got access to so much more.

It's not long before the violence of the streets

begins to fetch up in the hospital ward.

OK, a bit of a stab.

Sorry.

Brilliant. OK?

Sorry, was that sore?

Was that worse then the...?

These men have all been brutally beaten.

Police officers armed with assault rifles

keep watch over the more dangerous patients.

I've never seen so many guns, never ever

and they're big guns, they're not just pistolas,

they're massive great big...guns.

OK, bit of a scratch.

All patients receive equal treatment,

no matter which side of the law they're on.

-Done.

-Yeah?

-Perfecto.

SIREN WAILS

The ambulance crews provide a steady flow of victims.

Do we know if it's a gun or a knife?

I've been shocked by what I've seen.

I think it's the numbers of people coming in

who have been involved in violent attacks.

There are so many that don't obviously get to A&E as well.

That's kind of in the background.

You hear about the people that are killed every night.

The violence has dropped from its absolute peak in 2010,

but the daily slaughter goes on.

OK. So this is the local paper today.

This is in Juarez, in the centre?

Did this happen...did this happen on the street?

And this all happened today?

You're telling me this is like, every day, this would be the same?

I'm really shocked.

But there's another hidden tragedy in Juarez

that rarely makes the papers.

After their shift,

Pablo takes Maria to one of the most notorious roads in the city.

Hundreds of women have gone missing in Juarez in recent years.

Many have never been found.

The bodies of others have been discovered dumped by the roadside,

with signs of horrific violence.

Who are these women that are going missing? Where they from?

Do they know what happens to them?

How does this make you feel with your daughters?

Luz Elena Luis is one of Pablo's neighbours.

I'm so sad, I'm so sorry for you.

In England, if this happened just to one person,

there would be a lot done by the authorities.

It's just so wrong that this happens even to one person,

but its happened to so many women.

As a woman it does make me feel angry,

because you should be free to walk round,

you shouldn't go into town for a job interview

and then disappear off the face of the earth

and have nobody care apart from your family.

It's estimated that 96 % of all murders in Juarez go unsolved.

The police seem powerless,

and have been accused of widespread corruption.

In the face of the chaos and violence, the people of Juarez

have to get on with their everyday lives as best they can.

After the other night, Pablo, when the girl came in,

the young girl that was shot in the neck,

you were talking about how worried you are for your children.

It just made me... I can't stop thinking about it, how you cope.

You must live in this constant worry. I mean, is it safe here?

Does anything ever happen here?

Pablo keeps a close eye on his kids. They're not allowed out at night.

Does it make you very angry that this has all been happening

while you've been trying to grow up?

I think it's amazing how you've ended up with such a wonderful family.

You should be really proud of them,

and proud of what you've achieved and what you've done.

It'd be a tough act to follow.

It's been a really nice day to get to know the family more.

They've got huge worries about their children dying and being killed

and it's very real, so it's very moving listening to him,

and his children talking about how they cope.

(SIGHS) It just makes me think how lucky I am.

Maria's back at Juarez General.

She's come to work the day shift with Head Sister Trine De La Cruz.

Trine looks after the most critically ill patients in the hospital.

But Trine also has to deal with another group of patients,

because up here on the first floor is the prison ward,

constantly locked and guarded by armed police.

What kind of criminals are in there? What have they done?

With patients like these, the nurses have to take precautions.

So what's wrong with this patient?

With this... This one, we're going to wash this, yeah.

This one, put here.

-Just the saline in here?

-Mm-hmm.

And do you aspirate as I do that?

Is the bullet still in his head?

Did he have surgery to try and remove it?

-So it's an exit wound at the...

-Mm-hmm, yeah. In this side.

Do you get many patients like this

who you don't know who they are and they've been shot?

It's just mad that they've got a jail on the ward.

Really bizarre, having to cover your name and your face at work.

I would... I'd just say, "That's not in my job description, not at all."

Doctors and nurses are seen as wealthy

and are a prime target for kidnappers.

Many have been held for ransom and even murdered.

Hundreds of medical staff have fled the city,

leaving more than a third of the clinics and hospitals abandoned.

It's part of an exodus that has seen a quarter of a million people

flee Juarez since the violence began.

I can't imagine being threatened. You're not involved,

you're just looking after people.

Four years ago, Trine used her life savings to buy her dream home

in an upmarket family estate.

But within months, the drug gangs took over the area.

This is what it looks like now.

When the family were caught in a gunfight,

they fled the house with nothing.

This is the first time Trine's been back.

Ah...it's my home.

This was my room.

-This is your bedroom?

-Yeah.

Here is the closet and everything.

It's only little, but it was mine.

Why did you have to leave, what was happening?

It's lot of sadness inside that you must carry round all the time.

Yeah.

It's just derelict, isn't it?

Whole rows of houses that people have just up and left.

To me, that happens in a war,

when bombs are being dropped on houses.

My life is so, so different

and they are doing the same job as me, they're working,

they've got families,

and they seem to be so strong and positive and happy

and then you find out what really goes on in their lives.

Yeah, it's just really depressing

because it's just so unfair, isn't it?

But Trine is luckier than some.

Her family have dual nationality

and now live just across the American border in Texas.

She goes to visit them whenever she can.

How come it takes so long to get through?

Is where a lot of the drugs leave Juarez and get into America?

This is what the drug war in Juarez is all about.

Two major cartels are fighting for control

of the smuggling route to America.

Mexico is the world's largest exporter of marijuana.

And almost all of it is smuggled across the border

to supply the 17.5 million Americans who use it.

The bridge is also a conduit for millions of dollars

of Colombian cocaine.

OK. Thank you.

Just a stone's throw from Ciudad Juarez,

the Texan city of El Paso might as well be on a different planet.

It's one of the safest places to live in America.

It just feels really weird having been in Juarez

and not being able to go out on the street at all,

it just feels amazing to be back to normal.

Yes, I feel free here.

Yeah.

We go to the store or we go to a restaurant or to the park

we can go to everywhere you want and you feel free.

It's safe here.

Yeah, it just feels so different.

Trine's husband and children live with relatives

on the outskirts of El Paso.

Her son, Ricardo, is 17.

I get very worried when she goes to work

because Juarez is very dangerous

and sometimes I get worried

because I don't know if she's coming back, to see her again.

You'd rather she stayed here and didn't go back to Juarez?

Yes, yes, I would prefer for her to stay here,

but it's her passion and it's her life.

Do you feel guilty? How do you feel about it?

Of course!

She is guilty of me having a good life and I just have to say thanks.

But I know she loves what she does so what can I do?

I'm proud of my son.

Yeah, you should be.

-And I'm proud of my mum too.

-Aw.

THEY LAUGH

In 2010, there were five murders in El Paso.

In the same year in Juarez, there were 3,075.

Unlike in Mexico, guns are openly and legally on sale in Texas.

I've never seen so many guns.

Yes.

This is for hunting or fishing or whatever.

-Hello.

-Hi.

-Hi.

-This is Maria.

-Hello.

How are you? I'm Shane. I'm the manager, welcome.

Hi, Shane, hi.

I'm just having a look at all your guns.

What are some of these?

These are your semi-automatic pistols.

Flipping heck!

These are...they range anywhere from 380 calibre

all the way up to 45 calibre.

And what are some of these?

These are shotguns as well.

These are more personal defence shotguns.

12 gauge. The barrel is too short to do any damage to a bird

that's flying far away.

But for self-defence in your home.

Do people come in and buy these?

Absolutely.

-How often? How many people would buy?

-Every day.

How many hand guns would you sell every day?

I would say on an average day, five to six.

It's estimated that 90% of the guns used in the drug violence

over the border, originate in the US.

Many are bought here perfectly legally and smuggled into Mexico.

If somebody comes in and they look at bit dodgy,

you're worried, what do you do?

We do reserve the right to refuse service,

to anyone we feel is suspicious

or we have any reason not to want to sell them the weapon, we can.

So it hasn't happened often, but if it does, we will refuse service.

God, I've never seen so many guns.

I got quite sort of giddy, almost, when I walked in.

I was laughing because it's just so different, it's so...

I've never been in a gun shop.

I didn't really realise how easy it was to buy guns.

And the way...the guy was lovely,

but he was talking about buying guns

as if I was in buying a pair of shoes.

Made me a bit sad because you see all these guns and he's saying,

these are just for self-defence

or they're for taking to the firing range,

but...they're not.

These guns end up in Juarez.

One in eight gun shops in America are situated on the border.

It's thought that the Mexican cartels

employ people with no criminal record to buy guns in the US.

It's a shocking irony that a brutal war to smuggle drugs to America

is being fought with military grade weapons smuggled the other way.

The Mexican government complains bitterly about the flow of weapons,

but it seems to do little to check what's actually crossing the border.

You don't have to show your ID?

No. I don't need nothing to come here.

It's Maria's last night in Juarez.

Tonight she's going to experience

one of the city's most dangerous jobs for medics,

working in the ambulance service.

Red Cross ambulances attend everything

from car accidents to multiple shootings.

Not surprisingly, they work under police protection.

I'm excited but I'm kind of anxious now a little bit

because I've seen what comes in to A&E so I have this sense

of what's happening out there but I've not witnessed any of it.

I know they're used to being out there and they've got their safety

precautions and procedures in place, but I don't think you can ever

eliminate all risks, so I'll be a bit scared that first time we get out.

She's going to be working with volunteer Dr Jesus Weckmann.

Tonight we're mostly going to be seeing motor vehicle accidents

involving people that have been drinking,

some victims from aggressions

and possibly gunshot victims.

They've just sprayed out the ambulance that came back

covered in blood, where had it been?

Actually, they went to a crime scene that involved a shooting.

They transported a victim with six gunshot wounds.

They were having a bit of trouble

controlling the haemorrhages from the patient.

It was a bystander.

Just passing by when they started shooting at each other

and he got six shots.

SIREN WAILS

The first call is to one of the city's major roads.

So they arrested this guy?

Yeah, he's the driver.

Three cars have been involved in a collision.

-So, has he been drinking?

-Yeah.

I can smell alcohol on him, yeah.

You going to take him back to one of the hospitals?

We'll take him to one of the hospitals,

but he's going to go under police custody.

-So he'll go with the police, in their van?

-No.

He'll come with us?

Yeah, one of them will come with us to the hospital.

The team are racing to another call.

They're heading into one of the most dangerous parts of the city.

They can't go in without police protection.

Is it OK to get out straightaway?

Armed police squads have locked down the area.

So what's he called?

Where's this guy stabbed?

Is he dead?

Seems dead. He has a stab wound to the chest.

OK. It just looks like such a small wound, doesn't it? But it's...

-Really long.

-..Yeah.

Probably hit his heart or a main artery.

It's a young guy, looks like in his 20s,

and he's been stabbed in the chest.

Um, he's dead, there's nothing they can do.

I think he been here 20 minutes, some guys up there reported it.

He just looks really young. Yeah, it's really sad.

They're cordoning off a few blocks around

so that they can collect any evidence.

-The yellow, plastic side down?

-Yeah.

But, no, I've never seen anyone murdered before. So...

Yeah, it's just a waste.

Kind of think, that's probably

what's been heading his way all his life, you know?

Living here there's probably nothing else,

nothing he could have done about it.

It's just this inevitable tragedy that so many people

are going to have happen to them just because they live here

and because of what's going on in Juarez.

Yeah, it's, um...

..really sad.

SIREN AND HORN

It's Saturday night.

The busiest night of the week for the emergency services.

Maria is spending the rest of the night in the hospital

for her final shift with Pablo.

Her first job is to help treat a 21-year-old man.

He's got a head wound that was bleeding when he came in.

It's an arterial bleed, so it's quite a pulsing bleed.

So that's why the doctor has kind of come in to tie that artery off,

or they can lose quite a lot of blood.

He and his friends were subjected to a mock execution and badly beaten.

They're lucky to be alive.

The hospital begins to fill with case after case of violent crime.

How did that happen? Can we say how that happened?

A hammer?

I'll just get some clean gloves on.

They've stamped on his shoulder or his scapula.

So it's certainly... The shoulder's deformed.

They need to get an X-ray,

because he has dislocated it and it's incredibly painful.

He's got grazes and cuts all over him.

He's been sort of stamped on and hit

all over his back and his legs and his arms.

I can see a big graze across his shoulder.

There's one man, tucked away in the corner of the ward,

whose story epitomises the cruelty of Mexico's drug war.

What's happened? Yeah? PATIENTS CHATTER IN BACKGROUND

Yeah.

-And set you on fire?

-Yeah.

Luis and his son were kidnapped and tortured.

An armed gang poured petrol on him, then set him alight.

-Cos you've got open burns, haven't you?

-Yeah.

-They must be sore.

This is... This is...

-OK.

-Yeah.

-OK. But that's worse.

-Yeah.

It's terrible. It must have been absolutely terrifying.

How long were you held for?

Two days.

You're lucky to be alive, I guess.

-Yeah.

-Terrible.

It was a case of mistaken identity.

When the gang realised, they released him.

If that had happened in our department,

it would've been news. You know, somebody would've...

It would've been the first thing somebody would've said,

that this had happened to one of the patients. And it's...

You just kind of walk around

and have a little look at what patients have come in with,

and you just... This is sort of, yeah, normal I guess.

It's...just...crazy.

For the night shift at Juarez General, life goes on.

Pablo and the team have bought Maria a treat to say goodbye.

Wow! Both for me?

-This is!

-THEY LAUGH

Aww, thank you very much!

Thank you for having me and letting me work here with you.

I've had a brilliant time. You've all been great. Thank you.

I'd describe the Juarez people as warm, friendly,

incredibly welcoming, happy, brave,

positive people who have this amazing kind of spirit.

SHE LAUGHS I want to hug everyone!

'When you actually come to a place and you talk to people,

'it just drives it home really that it's individuals

'it's happening to and it's families'

and they're living under such terrible circumstances.

Pablo, thank you so much. Yeah...

Yeah, I'll see you soon. Thank you for everything.

OK.

'I've come now to Juarez, I've spent a couple of weeks here,

'and I could stay another couple of months

'and still not really understand what's happening.'

It just made me think a lot about, I guess,

the world and everybody living in it and how lucky I am.

Maria has been back at the Royal Preston for a month.

Right, Alan, are you all right if I take some blood?

-Yeah.

-I'm Maria...

'I felt really different when I came back.

'I'd done something and it was a real challenge.

'It's made me more grateful for what I have,'

and it's made me vow to stop moaning about the petty things in my life.

When I was in Juarez, if somebody had said,

"Would you stay or would you want to move out?"

I remember just thinking, "There's no way. No way I'd stay."

And then I think since I've come home,

just reflecting on how dedicated they are.

It renewed my belief in nursing and how important it is.

It made me just think maybe I've forgotten a bit of that, really.

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