Mr Andrew Cameron OAM

“Aid work makes you feel like you’re doing something worthwhile for your fellow humans, I think it’s what keeps me going.”

Andrew Cameron OAM is a highly decorated nurse and humanitarian aid worker who has provided emergency relief, health care and training in some of the world’s most volatile modern conflicts and crises.

His missions have included the 2014 response to the Sierra Leone Ebola Outbreak and medical response to conflicts in Georgia, Iraq, Yemen and South Sudan.

Having just returned from the frontline in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province as part of a humanitarian mission with the Red Cross, Cameron has resumed his role with Queensland Health.

When he isn’t overseas saving lives, Cameron’s efforts are focused on regional Australia where he works in one of Australia’s most remote clinics in Birdsville as the Director of Nursing. This clinic is located more than 700 kilometres by road from the nearest base hospital in Mount Isa.

During his 40 year career as a nurse, Cameron has been recognised for his humanitarian work with a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2013 and a Florence Nightingale Medal in 2011, the highest international distinction for nurses, for “exceptional courage and devotion to victims of armed conflict and natural disaster”.

He was also recently awarded the Ebola Medal for Service in West Africa in recognition of his work during the 2014 Ebola epidemic, and earlier this year received the Humanitarian Overseas Medal from the Office of the Australian Governor-General, His Excellency General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove AK MC (Ret’d).