nursingforsocialjustice

The stories of nursing and medicine are intertwined but I don’t think it’s a romance. The story is more like a struggle, it’s a story of oppression but it’s also a story of empowerment. It’s an underdog story. Nursing is waiting to bust out of the gates like a wild stallion.

Question of the Day:

How does pursuit of profit change the human-ness of health care?

I have read so many peer reviewed articles in the last 3 weeks. There is a lot of gloom and doom coming out of Australia and the UK. I get it. Mental health nursing (maybe psychiatric nursing…we’re not quite sure yet) is the worst it has ever been…like right now…no, right…now. But, is it? Is this just some rhetoric that keeps getting recycled to motivate us to do something different…only it turns out it’s the same thing someone brought up 5 years ago? Is this Groundhog Day? I do not know how we disentangle nursing from medicine, nursing from psychiatry. Do we even have to? When does the radical acceptance part happen?

We live in a strange world right now where everything is bleeding into everything else and o am experiencing life through computer screens while people are sick and dying and others believe the biggest injustice that is happening is that they cannot go on their annual All-inclusive to Mexico. I feel like I had an epiphany today where I thought, I love nursing for people who live with mental health issues so much that I am willing to set psychiatry free (like a squawking caged bird) and let psychiatrists have it. They can have the forced treatments and locked doors. They can have the seclusion rooms and mechanical restraints. They can have the crying patient begging to go outside at 2 am. Maybe they are so special that they become the special physicians who provide the 24/7 care.

This thing we call healthcare is not set in stone. These roles that we have are not forevermore. Maybe we can re-jig this whole thing and physicians can be salaried employees. Maybe nurses can have legislation to be the most responsible practitioner and set up a different entity, a different structure, a grass-roots endeavor that is aware of and considers the psychiatrist entity, but does not actively perpetuate it. Does this make sense? My vision my need a little more development, but I think I might have something here.

Peace,

Michelle D.