FORMER nurse and midwife Patricia Chase-Green believes that the nurses of today cannot compare to those that were trained back in her days and she cited part of the reason for this as the lack of proper and adequate training. “I recall the President of the Nursing Association Joan Stuart appealing to the then minister not to take a batch of 65 and 70 because of lack of interaction; the minister said they were there to train people, but one and two tutors cannot work,” Chase-Green, also Georgetown’s Deputy Mayor, told the Chronicle.
In an interview at her City Hall Office last week, she recalled how one nurse in particular, Nurse Phillips (now deceased) left a lasting impression on her with the caring attitude and kindness she showed her. In fact, Chase-Green, who spent some 38 years in the system, credits Nurse Phillips for the career path she undertook as a young woman.
“As a child, I visited the hospital (in New Amsterdam, Berbice) and met a wonderful nurse. I can only remember her as Nurse Phillips. She actually caused me to want to be a nurse. She was kind, loving and caring. She was always there to comfort you. Her attention to you made the pain so much easier. She could have brought comfort and sympathise with you in your time of need. I also admired the way she dressed. From then on, I had this part of me that cried out to care for people.
“I don’t think the nurses of those days can come on par with the kind of nursing we have today. It’s one hundred percent different! Today, you are so fearful to approach the nurses. You are amazed that you go to them so nicely and speak to them and they are so brutal,” Chase-Green observed.
She is advising nurses that regardless of the problems they have at home, they ought to leave them behind as soon as they touch the hospital gate. “You have other problems to take on now at work. You are dealing with several lives at one time. So you have to be able to be caring and to be sympathetic and try to put yourself in the patient’s shoes and ask yourself if you would like someone to treat you that way.”
“Nursing is a skill and you have to be able to learn it properly. A mistake is a life. Any mistake can cost the life of someone. I don’t see nursing as a pay day but as a service I offer to the needy. In all that we do, we must strive to serve people. Every person needs and require different attention, different care, and you must be able to adjust yourself to suit their needs,” Chase-Green further advised.