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Joy Ongcachuy a Filipina nurse that works at the Royal London Hospital has been awarded an OBE.

The OBE is a Queen’s honour given to a person for prominent national or regional roles and to people who make distinguished or notable contributions in their specific field of activity. The OBE was created by King George V during the First World War.

Joy received the OBE for her work treating victims of the 2017 terrorist attack at London Bridge.

Joy is originally from the Philippines but now lives in Stratford which is part of East London. She moved to the UK in 2002 to take a job at the Royal London Hospital and has worked there ever since.

She worked as a scrub nurse for most of that time but in 2017 was promoted to a robotic lead nurse.

On the night of the terrorist attack 3rd, June 2017 Joy Ongcachuy was on duty at Royal London Hospital, this is what she said about that terrible night “I was working the night shift that night and I heard the anaesthetist’s bleep go off. We already had a really sick patient in one of our theatres, so I had to get our other theatres ready and pull a team of nurses, allied health professionals and operating department practitioners together.”

She carried on to say “We opened an additional six theatres that night and everyone I called dropped everything they were doing to come to the aid of the patients. No one panicked; everyone was calm and so supportive.”

Just one week later Joy was working nights again when another terrorist attack happened at Finsbury Park in London, joy was also called on to assist in tending to the victims of that attack.

Joy had a friend that was working at St Bartholomew’s Hospital London and it was her that recommended London as a good place to work as a nurse, not long after this Joy got on a plane to start a new life in the UK.

She had wanted to be a nurse since she was a child and was always passionate about caring for others.

When Joy arrived in London she was with a group of 25 other Filipina nurses that went to work at the Royal London Hospital.

The Officer of the British Empire (OBE) was awarded to Joy on the 29th of December 2018.