Filipino nurse wins global award for life-saving evacuation system
Nurse Maria Victoria Juan was a small child when her aunt, a military nurse, was shot in the course of a mission. But even that did not prevent her from becoming a military nurse. Maria made headlines on Thursday when she won a highly sought after award in nursing for designing and implementing an evacuation system, which raised survival rate in particular, during conflicts.
She won the Aster Guardians Global Nursing Award and received a grant of over Dh900,000 at the award function in India.
At the age of 54, Maria was already a chief nurse, which made it challenging for her to join an intensive 9 month aeromedical evacuation training program. But as a leader she did 200 hours of emergency ambulance conduct, 100 hours of medical clinical systems, a mile of ocean swim, and objective tasks of full 3 day jungle survival, helicopter in-water ditching, and flights with medical aircrews. She did all this despite being scared of flying and swimming in deep waters.
Maria, who is now the Chief Nurse of the Philippine Army and the first officer to have created the first aeromedical evacuation system in the Armed Forces of the Philippines, currently holds the rank of Colonel at the Reserve Force of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and works as a consultant for the Philippine Army Health Services. The introduction of this system has significantly increased the chances of survival, as casualties are quickly evacuated and treated as early as possible especially in the theater of operations.
Highest standards
Dr. Azad Moopen, founder chairman of Aster DM Healthcare, stated, “Maria Victoria Juan hs the very highest standards of nursing professionalism and motivates the entire global health sector. We are convinced that nurses are the energy and nurturing life force of the system, who not only renders assistance but supervises the whole process and any industry. Among top 10 finalists and even among 78,000 applications woods wherever we filed this year has brought something new to their patients and fellow nurses in their countries.”
Being an environmental health advocate, Maria incorporated vetiver grass technology for soil erosion and water pollution prevention. In her efforts, during the Covid time, Maria established the Endurun Mega Swabbing Center, where she trained soldiers as medical swabbers and managed the soldiers and healthcare. The centre administered almost the number of swabs the country had the capacity 500,000 tests, and played an active role in the country’s fight against the pandemic.
The award was established by Aster DM Healthcare due to the need in 2021 to honour and appreciate the remarkable impact nurses have across the globe. In the 2024 edition of the awards, the excitement was felt across 78 000 nurses from 202 countries, up from 53273 in 2023, representing an increase of approximately 50%.
For making inroads in Nursing practice and advancement in the discipline, the other nine finalists were also given cash awards. These include: Archimedes Motari from Kenya, Johnsy Inni from Papua New Guinea, Laarni Conlu Florencio from the USA, Lilian Nuwabaine from Uganda, Nelson Bautista from UAE, Nilima Pradeepkumar Rane from India, Martin Schiavenato from the USA, Hoi Shu Yin from Singapore and Sylvia May Hampton from England.
To begin with, these nurses were able to be nominees that passed the scrutiny of Ernst & Young LLP, the review panel, and the Grand Jury.
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