Caring hands extend beyond humans

When I read that nurses from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) were spending long hours at Zoo Atlanta caring for a baby orangutan struggling to survive, it didn’t surprise me. I’ve come to realize that nurses can and will do most anything they set their minds to.

It’s not every day you get asked to use your skills to help an endangered species, said Melissa Goodbread, a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit at CHOA.

“This was different than anything I’d ever done, and it really brought me back to the basics of nursing and why I do what I do,” said Goodbread, RN, BSN, NICU. “Even though the outcome was very sad, I feel honored to have been part of this experience. It taught me that you should never underestimate your knowledge or what you can give to your community.”

Sandar, underweight and with health complications, was born on March 30. Because he wouldn’t nurse, zoo curators intervened, hoping to hand-raise the primate until he was strong enough to return to his mother.

Due to habitat loss and illegal collection, orangutans are a highly endangered species. The worst-case predictions suggest that they’ll be wiped out from their native islands of Borneo and Sumatra in 20 years, said Dwight Lawson, Zoo Atlanta’s senior vice president of collections, education and conservation. With 10 orangutans, the zoo has the largest population in the United States and primate curators are heavily involved in research and conservation efforts for the species.

Zoo officials knew saving Sandar would be a challenge. Infant orangutans spend the first three years or more clinging to their mothers. Besides his medical needs, Sandar would have to be constantly held and fed through a nasogastric feeding tube.

The zoo turned to the nurses in the neonatal intensive care unit at CHOA for their knowledge and skills with fragile human infants.

Chrys Fields, RNC, BSN, was the first to volunteer to be a surrogate mother and nurse to the patient she came to call “my furry boy.” She spent 29 hours in the tiny zoo nursery that first week.

Other nurses soon stepped forward and signed up for shifts on their days off. In all, 28 nurses staffed Sandar’s nursery for more than 2,000 hours between April 10 and his death on July 1.

“The compassionate investment made by the nurses from Children’s is a strong testament to the importance of our conservation mission,” said Raymond B. King, president and CEO of Zoo Atlanta. “We are extremely grateful for their generosity.”

Fields came away with a new appreciation for the zoo and its staff.

“You think of it as a place to have fun and see animals,” she said. “You have no idea how much these people love their jobs, and how they find ways to make due on very limited resources.