Bundy nurses rally to help frontline colleague following stroke

Emergence nurse Megan Jonas suffered a stroke on January leaving her paralysed on one side, now her colleagues and family are doing what they can to help out. Find out how you can lend a hand.

Nurses from Bundaberg Hospital’s emergency department have rallied together to help one of their own, who is recovering from a stroke.

Emergency nurse Megan Jonas suffered a stroke in January and has been in hospital ever since.

Suffering diabetes since she was young, Megan studied nursing while going through dialysis after being diagnosed with kidney failure in 2010.

In 2012, she underwent a kidney and pancreas transplant.

The day before Megan’s stroke, she was told she would have to go back on dialysis due to her transplant kidney failing.

The stroke left Megan paralysed down one side of her body and in need of rehabilitation to get feeling back.

Previously being in hospital on the Gold Coast, she is now continuing her recovery at Bundaberg and her colleagues have jumped at the opportunity to lend a hand.

On Wednesday, which was also International Nurses Day, hospital staff and the community gathered at the Bundaberg Hospital for a sausage sizzle to continue raising funds.

A sausage sizzle was held on International Nurses Day on Wednesday to help raise funds to help with Megan's recovery.

Fellow nurse Samantha Matthews described Megan as “an amazing nurse” who worked on the frontline during the pandemic.

She said she couldn’t think of anything better than helping one of their own on International Nurses Day.

“We didn’t know much about Megan’s until organ donation week last year, when she shared her story to publicise organ donation,” she said.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for her, she’s very brave and considering she was immunosuppressed herself she continued to work as a frontliner.

“At a time when the staff were struggling a little bit with morale, she unfortunately had a stroke and spent five months (in hospital) on the Gold Coast so that hit us pretty hard as a team.

“We’re not used to feeling helpless so we decided to rally around and do something for the family...we can’t do anything practical other than help raise funds for the family and let them know they have our full support.”

Megan’s sister Kylie said she and her family were “amazed” by the support for her sister.

“It’s so overwhelming, we’re blown away,” she said.

“When I started the GoFundMe page I just put it up and thought ‘we have quite a big family’ and they’d maybe donate $5 or $10 each and we’d get to out goal, but the amounts people have been donating and people we don’t even know have been donating to us, it’s just been overwhelming.”

So far more than $6,000 has been raised through the GoFundMe page, just under $4,000 short of their $10,000 goal.

On Sunday, fundraising will continue with Music Bingo at the Club Hotel, you can find information here.

You can also donate through the GoFundMe page.

Originally published as Bundy nurses rally to help frontline colleague following stroke