An eye opening experience

Today I had one of the most influential days of classes I have ever had. I was rocked to my core. My stereo types and stigmas and preconceived notions were smashed to pieces. My day started off with a 3 hour class about homelessness and poverty. The theory and stats we went through were fascinating. I learned once again how much I take for granted in my life and how fortunate I really am. I learned to have more compassion for the homeless and the impoverished and all street people and people dealing with different levels of substance abuse. Then this afternoon was when things really hit me. We had a guest speaker come into our class named Derek. He is a Street Nurse from down town Vancouver. He works every day with drug addicts, prostitutes, and the homeless. He showed us a movie that a coworker of his had just made that is not yet released, and it was absolutely amazing the work being done. But not in the conventional way people might think.

If you are anything like me when you hear the term "safe injection sites" you become enraged. Safe injection sites?!? Why on earth are we giving drug addicts needles and a place to shoot up their drugs. I have always had the mentality of cure, cure, cure, save, save, save! We need to be going to all these drugs addicts and telling them they need to get their lives in order, go to rehab wake up and realize the crap you are doing!! But today I was given a new realization that will forever change the way I think about such things.

You can tell someone who is drug addicted that they need to get help. Duh!? 99.9% of those people know that and think about it on a DAILY basis. They don't need nurses telling them. What they do need is nurses out on the street meeting them at their levels and helping them stay safe. These street nurses that work on the down town east side spend their days walking the street talking to addicts and teaching them ways to shoot up safely and decrease their risk of infection or overdose. They provide them with clean needles and condoms and even "mouth pieces" used to smoke crack with. Some people may say that this is simply enabling them to do drugs. Well you know what!? They are going to be doing those drugs no matter if they have a clean needle and use "clean" technique or not. They are going to prostitute themselves for money to support their habit whether they have condoms or not! So why not try to keep them as safe as possible and keep the spread of disease down. These nurses also give vaccines to addicts and street people, they go and do blood tests for HIV and other STD's right out there on the street because these people wont go to clinics to get tested. They provide antibiotics to infected people. They find these at risk people shelters and safe places to sleep. They take them to clinics or hospitals to make sure they get the care they need.

It was just absolutely eye opening and amazing what these nurses do and how little reward they get from it but they go out day after day just trying to make a small difference in these otherwise despised peoples lives. I am FOREVER changed buy what I learned today and I have been inspired to get involved. Make a difference. Treat these people with respect and make sure that if I encounter them in the hospital that I am treating them well and not ignoring and marginalizing them further.

My fellow nursing friends Darla and Kim and I discussed today with our instructor about trying to make Street Nursing a clinical experience in our nursing program or at least an option for student nurses to get involved in during their summer breaks. What an amazing life changing experience that would be for people. Truly, truly eye opening.

If you want to see a small excerpt from the movie we were shown today they have a short clip on a website. I encourage everyone to watch this movie if you get the chance. It may only be shown to nursing students, but if you hear about it, watch it! It's called Bevel Up. Here is the website link to the short clip.

www.bevelup.com

I know this was a long post but I just felt that I needed to get this out. It had been weighing heavily on my heart today ever since I got home. What an enriching day. And I didn't even want to go! I am so glad I did!!