ABC radio  has reported on the experiences of Australian civilian nurses who served during the Vietnam war and are now suffering same problems as the soldiers who served there, such as cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions,  but who are unable to access to the same medical care or entitlements. Over 450 Australian nurses, doctors and allied health professionals volunteered to work as part of the surgical teams sent to Vietnam under the governance of the South East Asia Treaty Organisation, known as SEATO. DOT ANGELL: My first impression was, "What on Earth had I got myself into?" But, of course, within a week you were working amongst it as if you had been there all your life, and you just got on with it. SALLY SARA: Dot Angell arrived in Vietnam as a staff nurse in 1967. She remembers treating villagers who had been injured during heavy fighting, and noticing a small girl who was standing near the operating theatre. Anyway the next day, the senior nurse came into the surgical suite and was crying and I said, "What on Earth's wrong?" And she said, "You know that little girl that we thought, you know, where are her parents? There are no parents, they were killed in the fighting in the village." And so here was this little orphan girl, swept up in all the evacuation, and she was literally on her own. SALLY SARA: Dot Angell later became Dean of Nursing at Monash University, and was determined