RECEIVED VIA EMAIL FROM A FRIEND, AND FELLOW RN IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, ORIGIN UNKNOWN BUT I EXPECT IT IS ALL TOO TRUE. SADLY, THIS IS WHAT OUR SOCIETY IS BREEDING.
Dear Editor,
>
> I am a nurse who has just completed volunteer working
approximately 120 hours as the clinic director in a Hurricane Gustav evacuation
shelter in Shreveport, Louisiana
> over the last 7 days. I would love to see someone look at
the evacuee situation from a new perspective. Local and national news channels
have covered the evacuation and
> "horrible" conditions the evacuees had to endure
during Hurricane Gustav. True - some things were not optimal for the evacuation
and the shelters need some modification.
> At any point, does anyone address the responsibility (or
irresponsibility) of the evacuees?
>
> Does it seem wrong that one would remember their cell
phone, charger, cigarettes and lighter but forget their child's insulin? Is
something amiss when an evacuee gets off the bus, walks immediately to the
medical area, and requests immediate free refills on all medicines for which
they cannot provide a prescription or current bottle (most of
> which are narcotics)?
>
> Isn't the system flawed when an evacuee says they
cannot afford a $3 co pay for a refill that will be delivered to them in the
shelter yet they can take a city-provided bus to
> Wal-mart, buy 5 bottles of Vodka, and return to consume them
secretly in the shelter?
>
> Is it fair to stop performing luggage checks on incoming
evacuees so as not to delay the registration process but endanger the volunteer
staff and other persons with the very
> realistic truth of drugs, alcohol and weapons being brought
into the shelter?
>
> Am I less than compassionate when it frustrates me to
scrub emesis from the floor near a nauseated child while his mother lies nearby,
watching me work 26 hours straight, not
> even raising her head from the pillow to comfort her own
son?
>
> Why does it insense me to hear a man say "I
ain't goin' home 'til I get my FEMA check" when I would love to
just go home and see my daughters who I have only seen 3 times this week?
>
> Is the system flawed when the privately insured patient must
find a way to get to the pharmacy, fill his prescription and pay his co pay
while the FEMA declaration allows the uninsured person to acquire free
medications under the disaster rules?
>
> Does it seem odd that the nurse volunteering at the
shelter is paying for childcare while the evacuee sits on a cot during the day
as the shelter provides a "daycare"?
> Have government entitlements created this mentality and am I
facilitating it with my work?
>
> Will I be a bad person, merciless nurse or poor Christian
if I hesitate to work at the next shelter because I have worked for 7 days being
called every curse word imaginable,
> feeling threatened and fearing for my personal safety in
the shelter?
>
> Exhausted and battered,
> Sherri Hagerhjelm, RN
About Me
- ERnursey
- A hardworking ER nurse trying to survive until retirement and if I can have little fun or have a positive impact on someone's life, all the better!
DISCLAIMER!!!!
Subscribe via email
Blogroll me
Blogroll
stat counter
13 comments:
Free=More. And always will
Go Sherri, After 30 Years in nursing, mostly in ER. That's how most of us feel.
Sounds like triage only the patients all live there in the lobby and won't leave. *Shudders*
The "gimmie gimmie gimmie" culture gone wild. Nothing -- no services, no amount of money, no variation of aid -- will ever be enough for such people. They will always feel entitles to more.
Meanwhile, those of us who work to provide it -- either directly or via tax dollars -- just get tired and more aggravated.
We know this. We deal with these types of people on an hourly basis. Maybe the rest of the country needs to know this too. What the culture of welfare has created.
Wow. I had no idea. The mainstream press should cover this.
Excellent points from that email. I faced the same things during Hurricane Katrina when I volunteered. The 2nd week when I got out in the community and drove around to offer services is the time when I saw true grace and compassion from the people that lived there. While working the shelter the first week - I faced everything this email you received said.
Sad.
Please forgive me for cross-posting this, but my friend is a nursing student and asked for help. She needs a nursing article on lower income mothers that breast feed that has culture inclinations and it has to be a nursing article. This is for a paper she has to write, NOT to copy. She hasn't had any luck finding one, so I said I'd ask some of these brilliant nurse blogs. If you know where she can find this, please write me at mdfloyd at gmail.com
Thanks!
Thanks for this post. I am from the MS Gulf Coast and my mom is from New Orleans Area. I am so tired of her going on and on about how unacceptable the conditions were for those in shelters. I hope she sees the light. (BTW.. We evac'd using our own money to a hotel, mom included)
just stumbled upon this post...sherri ...I am so sorry that you had to experience this.... what a horrible mess.. I don't doubt any of it.....it jsut sickens me to know that this is what is going on....as a nurse for 25 years I will tell you that you are the best kind of nurse and christian there is
You should consider writing a book or taking this to the media...people ned to know what is really happening
I agree there's something wrong with American society. Thanks for giving me a reason not to volunteer to help hurricane victims, BTW.
But did you expect something more when society expects much less of people? I'm not asking for society to be Medieval Catholic or something, but please, we need some improvements.
You can't improve how people act if the judges don't support you.
Stumbled on this blog. Absolutely spot on commentary! This has been going on far too long with these ungrateful leeches on society. I can only imagine what honest decent hardworking medical staff have to put up in trying to help people who refuse to help themselves.
I fear the only solution will be in future evacuations to take all of these people and put them in a facility, perhaps outside in the fresh air with tents, like Joe Arpiao has in Phoenix, outdoor camps, and make them work for what they receive.
I knew a shelter in Central Illinois that asked for just a few hours of pushing a broom in return for being in the shelter and people actually refused! They hid behind their little children figuring the shelter wouldn't put them out in the middle of January. Well, they did! Of course the bleeding hearts whined about all that 'do unto the least of these' in the Bible, but what are honest and decent people to do with these leeches? So they have kids? So what? Those of us who produce simply can't allow the fact they these people have children to hide behind to allow them to freeload.
We can show the love of Christ to these people by getting tougher and forcing some responsibility on them. After all, the Lord helps those that helps themselves!
Or maybe next time they can stay in their ghettos and drown.
I am an ER nurse in Shreveport and while I didn't volunteer in the shelters during the hurricanes (I was getting my butt kicked at the only Level I facility in the state), I can share in Sherri's frustration! The buck didn't stop at the shelters! We received evacuees in droves, all of whom expected and were aghast when we refused to give them free meds, cab vouchers, food, drug samples, clothing, diapers, formula, sanitary pads, hygiene products...the list goes on and on. At least 9 out of 10 came to us for entirely preventable problems that would not have existed had they taken upon themselves an ounce of personal responsibility or forethought. Being in the thick of things, I was perfectly aware that government checks (think mandatory direct deposit) were cut 4 days early, the Thursday before the hurricanes, in order to allow people the means to evacuate in a orderly and timely manner. Not that it mattered. Despite almost a week of advanced warning, most "barely made it out" with only the clothes on thier backs and nothing more. I heard patients say, "Well I didn't bring nothing cuz I knew y'all would give me everything I need like last time". Mothers with hungry children in musty diapers who didnt bring even one extra bottle or can of formula or jar of food yelling profanities at us because we could only give them 2 or 3 diapers at a time (surely they didn't run out of every basic supply at the exact moment the hurricanes came)! Diabetics without insulin stating, "well I just didn't think to bring it". Excuse after excuse, "We had to leave so fast" or "I didn't have a dollar to my name". With rare exception, they were all lying. And complaining...the nursing staff wasn't compassionate enough, not nurturing enough, not quick enough, not good enough. They even complained about our facilities (which are by no means spectacular as we are a state hospital). During the small reprieve between the two hurricanes, I glanced over a pictoral story ran in the Shreveport Times (where I also saw Sherri's letter to the editor-which is where this email originated) that highlighted many of the evacuees complaints and showed pictures of the various Shreveport/Bossier facilities (I saw TV's and clean restrooms and clean beds with linens, and places for children to play). The back page featured a large picture in which hundreds of young men were sleeping on a disarray of dirty cots in thier clothes and boots with little more than a glorified fanny-pack on the ground beside them. I read the caption, wondering what shelter it was for it indeed looked horrible...only to realize that I was looking at a picture of National Gaurdsmen and Reservists sleeping under a covered parking lot somewhere in town. I cried.
Post a Comment