AJN Health Care Reform Poll
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“Pitiable Indeed” – AJN Archives Reveal Nurse’s Firsthand Account of 1918 Flu
The above is an excerpt from a North Dakota nurse’s vivid and painful letter to the editor about the Spanish influenza, published in the December 1918 issue of AJN. To read the entire letter, click here (and then click on the PDF link in the upper right corner of the page) or click on the excerpt itself. We’ve combed through our archives for articles dealing with various influenza epidemics and threats of epidemics, and found some fascinating material that puts what we’re currently going through in some perspective. To see the entire collection of articles, covering 1918 to the present, click here. (Note: some articles are free and some are accessible only to AJN subscribers. The older articles are available only in PDF format.)
A Nursing Student Learns the Trick of Reassurance
I wasn’t sure why Mary Sue was in long-term care, but I could tell she had dementia. She spent most of her time in a recliner near the nurse’s station, asking anyone who walked by why she couldn’t go back to bed.
“It isn’t time yet, Mary Sue,” the staff would reply. I asked one of the nurses why they didn’t just take her back to bed. “When we do,” she told me, “she asks to return to the chair. Out here we can keep an eye on her. She can look out the window. She smiles more often.”
But I had yet to see a smile. This was my first rotation as a nursing student, and I tried to use techniques I’d read about to distract Mary Sue: towel folding, cards, books. But she remained on target, reaching out to me and repeating her request with a distraught look on her face. . .
Read the rest of the November Reflections essay, written by a nurse looking back on her first nursing school rotation five years ago. The basic human need for reassurance is shared by all of us, whether we are patients or providers. What do you do to stay centered during the day, to remind yourself of your own value, to focus on what really matters . . . or just to stay in the game?
From Flu Vaccine to Abortion Rights: The Same Argument?
By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN interim editor-in-chief
There’ve been articles, blog posts, a court ruling in New York State halting mandatory H1N1 vaccinations for health care workers, and last week a suspension of the mandatory vaccinations by Governor Paterson (who explained the decision in terms of the vaccine shortage). Earlier this month, we ran a poll on this site related to whether or not nurses and other health care workers who work as direct caregivers should be mandated to receive the flu vaccine. In reading the poll results, I notice that many of the arguments against mandatory vaccination focus on the right to decide about one’s own body—a powerful argument, indeed.
It did make me wonder: do those who stand by this reason for not getting an H1N1 vaccination shot (or nasal mist) recognize that this argument—that one has a right to determine what happens to one’s body—is the same argument used by women who want to choose whether to have a baby or not? At the very least there’s an interesting parallel, even if some people I’ve pointed this out to don’t seem to agree. I’d like to know if others feel there is a difference—and if so, what?
Sudanese Rumors of Ebola Outbreak a ‘Cry for Help’ – Is the Obama Administration Listening?
By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, interim editor-in-chief
Reuters reported Thursday that there is no Ebola outbreak after all in the southern Sudan. Rather, the rumors were started by local administrators and representatives of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) “to draw attention . . . to the acute lack of medicine” in the area, according to Kuol Diem Kuol, an SPLA spokesperson. According to Reuters, the false rumors that 20 soldiers and three of their wives had died were successful in bringing health personnel to the area to investigate . . . and to provide the desired medicines.
I can’t help thinking that conditions must be really really bad if the Sudanese people went to the lengths of staging a hoax to receive health care. After all, this is a people that has withstood some of the worst brutality in recent memory from civil wars and the genocide in the Darfur region. […]