“Think that you are to be operated with the surgical instruments that you have sterilized in the operating room that you have sterilized.”

This is the words of greeting O Myong Hui, head nurse at the narcosis and operation department of Wonsan City People’s Hospital No. 1, says whenever a new nurse comes under her charge.

It is a challenging job even for young people to work at the narcosis and operation department where they must sterilize appliances and supplies in the operation room and run machines during the operations and prepare for the new day after a day’s work, said Pak Myong Sop, director of the hospital.

O Myong Hui has taken part in more than 55 000 surgical operations of various kinds, helped cure 15 000 severe cases and over 1 800 severest cases and saved lives of many patients by giving skin grafts for five times and transfusions for over ten times.

Born into a peasant’s family in 1946, O became a nurse at the age of 17 after finishing a training course.

At that time her father told her that a nurse is someone who looks after patients like their own parents, brothers and sisters and that only devotion and dutifulness can make an excellent nurse.

Cherishing her father’s words in mind, she tried hard to get accustomed to tender words and warm smiles while acquiring medical knowledge.

“My first experience in an operation was a skin grafting surgery on a patient with burns,” O recalled. “I was so nervous that I couldn’t see the patient’s face, to say nothing of the wounds. As he needed more grafts since his condition was found to be worse than expected, the head nurse offered her skin. She was followed by other nurses, who unhesitatingly climbed onto the operating table. I was really surprised to see that there were several scars on their bodies.”

From then on, she got full aware of her duty as a nurse.

Whenever a patient required a transfusion, she would readily roll up her sleeve and whenever a seriously ill patient was brought in, she would come forward to wtake them in charge.

“I volunteered to look after a patient who was in shock from copious bleeding and multiple fractures. I had to take his blood pressure, pulse and breathing every ten to 15 minutes and change his posture every 30 minutes. After tending him for over a month at the hospital, I was really exhausted. But when he recovered, I was moved to tears with overwhelming joy,” she wrote in her diary.

Her young children would come to see her at the hospital as she had to take part in operations on emergency cases even on holidays.

Decades passed, and she came to possess unparalleled nursing skills. The surgeons at the hospital say that they feel reassured when she assists them in operations.

She was honoured with the title of a meritorious person of socialist patriotism in recognition of her decades-long devotion to the care of patients with warm human love.