"This award does not belong to me; it goes to each nurse working on a mobile healthcare clinic that dedicates his or her time and efforts to the health of people in far flung places." This is exactly the kind of comment that assured Sr Charlotte Stemmet's award as the Rural Nurse of the Year 2016 at the Rural Health Conference 2016 held in Grahamstown from 6 to 9 August 2016.

Stemmet is an alumnus of the Division of Nursing at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS) of Stellenbosch University (SU). She started her career as a professional nurse in primary health care over 15 years ago at the then small clinic of Nduli, just outside Ceres.

She is currently employed by the Western Cape Department of Health in the district health services operating a mobile clinic service to the Bossieveld farming community in Worcester. She has also been involved in establishing a health committee, soup kitchen, sustainable vegetable garden, halfway house for HIV patients and the coordination of community care workers.

The Rural Nurse of the year award is presented by the Association for Rural Nursing South Africa (RuNurSA) to a rural nurse working in rural healthcare who has made a significant contribution towards rural healthcare in the previous year. "The nature of the contribution is not strictly defined, given the great variety of work and activities of rural nurses," said Dr Guin Lourens, the Chairperson of RuNurSA and the Manager of the Clinical Training Platform at the FMHS.

Stemmet and her colleague, Staff Nurse Christine Marcus, operate a mobile healthcare clinic in the farming areas of the Breede Valley in the Cape Winelands. Their patients are far from towns and depend on the mobile clinics for primary healthcare services. Come rain, shine, wind or snow, Stemmet and Marcus pack their mobile clinic, a flask of coffee and set off to the farming communities.

In most places they are greeted with a hearty hello and many farmers have made a shed or hall available for them to see patients in. However, sometimes they see patients in the mobile clinic, where in a space a little smaller than a caravan they offer a comprehensive primary care health service that includes mother and child care; HIV and TB counselling, testing and treatment; child health; chronic diseases management; and women's health. 

Stemmet was recently awarded with her Master's degree in Nursing for the anecdotal research she did on the perceptions and experiences of the nurses about the mobile clinic work environment'. The research document is available online at http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/98767.

"I hope it will address the plight of the nurses working on mobile clinics, whose only desire is to be able to fulfil their caring role as nurses to the people, providing a service to those who do not otherwise have reasonable access to health services", Stemmet said.

Stemmet decided to direct her research to scientific data collection from nurses on the provision of care in the mobile clinic work environment to further enhance service delivery. Her research has proved that there are extreme challenges which rural nurses have to contend with in their daily working lives, while trying to provide health care to the people who would otherwise receive no service. Her input has influenced design improvements to mobile clinic vehicles.