Following the good nurses..

"The doctor tell me.. you better come to dis centre.. let dese nurses do de bandaging.. an' since I comin hey fuh bandage.. massive improvement.. " the woman tells me.
We laugh when I say 'like dem nurse hey hand mussee good"

We are sitting at the health centre waiting on our dressings. A lot of people are waiting. The mood is calm. Each patient who comes out tends to be smiling, probably glad that the dressing is over.

The doctor had seen me for about 15 minutes and wrote the referral. The first time I met the nurse I was anxious. She was not cold, not warm. Business like. I could imagine, the public health system and she has to get through a whole set.
I holler when I feel the snip and the sting of iodine on the flesh.

"Deep breaths' the nurse tells me. Behave yourself.. .. she says as I don't hold back. Still business like.
"I done'.. she says.. "come back tomorrow.." and I have been going back.. several days..


There is a weirdness in my life as circumstances have me taking up a nursing role which I did not really want to take up, with a patient who I had hoped to be far away from at this point in my life.

There is an irony in that I have to receive nursing care during this time.

"Look, stop talking nonsense".. I shout at the patient I am dealing with who is moaning that 'me nah wan nuttin.. me arite.. me wan dead, etc".  I would have probably failed nursing 101.. or maybe get a pass to go work at the hospitals where complaints are not about doctors so much about the nurses who are not attentive and who leave patients in pain.



The patient is elderly, and the phone calls are not enough. Like a good nurse, I contact the patient's next of kin to see if some face to face visits could be arranged.  None of the people who would come to his funeral seem to want to come and sit down face to face.   There is something we have to learn in our culture.. time perhaps to have living funerals and wakes so that those who are being mourned could be celebrated before they die. Some nurses though, fill in, with the conversations and so. Some don't and I could understand why.

I could deal with the physical stuff related to the nursing.. the pscychosocial stuff I cannot deal with.

"So any complaints, how you doing".. the nurse asks me as she readies the iodine pad for cleaning and the wick to push in the hole..  I start talking, not about the bandage or the hole, but about my experience with nursing. I want to laugh to myself too .. The nurse doesn't say anything  as she pushes in the wick and I interrupt the flow of talk to holler.

She doesn't tell me anything.

"Look, come eat, eat your food" I am not shouting at the patient but close to feeling pissed off because I am not in the mood for negotiation. Sometimes I think I would leave the patient to die if that is what is desired, but then the dying would be slow and recovery might be more long and so on.

One day at the health centre, a drunk man with bleeding head seeks care. The nurse bandages him and calls ambulance for him to go hospital.  The man says he doesn't want to go. The nurse whose voice is normally low, is almost shouting.. 'why are you refusing care,, go and get the care for your head".. I smile as I remember doing the same with another patient until I gave up.

The man went in the ambulance in the end.

The nurses keep telling me to come back , even though I wish for the thing to heal. I am sure they have no problem seeing the last of me.  But I am grateful to them for making sure that they will stop seeing me until I am sure the bandage needs fixing. They tell me to have dry bath but I say to hell with it,, I will try and do whatever and twist and turn and hope the bandage does not get wet. I know.. I am a bad patient and making their work more difficult.

One day I am the last patient to be dressed. The nurse is sitting down. She looks fatigued. It has been busy, and there have been babies. I know sitting outside, some babies and so cute and smiling and running around.. some loud and so. Others bawling. I am sort of stressed. I tell her take a break.. and she smiles and says 'Nah.. leh we done'

I am not sure who cares for nurses, especially in the public health system. My nerves tend to frazzle a lot as I cannot manage the emotional intelligence required to do the negotiations required for nursing.  I understand why there are complaints about the nurses.. the society is not one which nurtures a whole set of people who want to do caring work.

I am lucky to have self care and other tools available. But this kind of work is more stressful than other work I have ever done...

"Dis country does mek you want lie down pun hospital bed" the woman in the minibus says as we talk about the drugs in school
 One Cardiologist has said there is an epidemic of heart disease in Guyana. There is probably an increasing burden on the public health sector.

I am offered work, which be paid at a much higher rate than the nursing pays. The work does not have involve me having to listen to anyone, or to encourage them to take their medications to heal themselves or to keep them comfortable. I might have to seek some lower paid nursing services and  I feel exploitative when I am thinking about that.  Of course I could decide what to pay.

It is cliche that we say that 'caring' work is undervalued. In this increasingly violent world, where it seems more of us would be in need of quality care.. time to reconsider which work we value more than others and to ensure that caring work.. nursing, parenting, teaching ,farming.. gets the rewards that are due.

I also am waiting for my nursing days to be done soon.