Pride of Guernsey: Martine Dean
MARTINE DEAN has been nominated for the Specsavers-sponsored Carer of the Year award.
Her nominator, Kelly Baudains, said Martine has fought adversity all her life, and losing her father at a very young age left her to help care for her siblings.
She lost her son when he was murdered and she has had to fight breast, appendix and bowel cancer.
Despite all of this she has always cared for others and always puts others first.
As an auxiliary nurse on Loveridge Ward, she would help sleep-deprived parents by taking their babies overnight, feeding and caring for them so parents could get some rest.
She also helped patients struggling to breast feed and gave extra support while they gave birth.
Even when she worked busy shifts at the hospital, she would spend her time off looking after her grandchildren, ensuring we could continue to work.
She would arrange her life around them.
She later took a job at Les Bourgs Hospice and has always said that the one thing she could take away with her is that she was able to make the end of her patients’ life better.
After fighting cancer for a third time, she found it very difficult to go back to Les Bourgs.
Her mother and mother-in-law now need extra help. She gets their shopping, cleans their houses, does their washing, and collects prescriptions, doing this on foot because she does not drive.
She rarely has time to herself, she is a very special person who has love in her heart and dedicates her life to caring for others.
