"Health care is vital to all of us some of the
time, but public health is vital to all of us all
of the time"
- (C. Everett Koop in Keleher & MacDougall, 2011).
Starting this semester we are looking at Public Health. I prefer calling it Community Health as I recently felt a passion to help in the community. Often we look overseas to where we are needed but after a small debate with a friend, I have really come to realise something. Your local community needs you just as much. As a nursing student I am learning skills that will benefit me and others wherever I am but I've always dreamt of going overseas to help in Africa. This paper has begun to really attacked my own, selfish thoughts, and I'm realising I need to pause in my dreams of working overseas and instead impact and assist the people in my own community.
There is a group called Urban Vision who have some incredible principles that I value. It is about community and getting to people beyond the walls of the Church. A couple I know have moved from this spacious clean house to within the community in a small, dingy flat but they are among the people who they wish to impact. I think that is something key about Urban Vision, they are helping from within. They relate to the people, they aren't people who say things but don't live it and this makes them trusted and appreciated by the people they are working with. Even today we were creating a video about what we dream for the Church nationwide and what we value. I don't know what some of the other participants said but I value the opportunities that come from Church, how it's strengthened my life and values I value the people I meet and the impact they have on my life and how they have helped me grow. I dream that the Church helps locally nationwide, to move out of the building's restraints and live in the community as they people we say we are. I understand that help is needed overseas but help is also needed among the people we live among everyday.
I wanted to become a nurse after reading some books about a fiction nurse called Sue Barton. The one book that really stood out for me was when she worked as a Henry Street Nurse. They work among the poor people in New York, tending to people's health but also being available and known and trusted by the community. It made me dream of working among a community where I can really help and as I've said earlier, I always looked overseas. Instead I should have been looking much closer to home and the heart to the people in my own community and country. One story that stood out about the impact they had within people lives was about an old lady who had recently moved and she had lost her spark. Sue had no idea at first how to help her as she was physically well, but as nurses learn, it's about holistic care. All the old lady desired was to sit on the street and watch lives go on about her, be amongst the bustle and the life and was what made her life content. Another story was about finding a home for a baby who's mother was unable to care for, and another family that could not have children and thus the wife was depressed. Sue connected the dots and connected the family, giving life again to the wife with a child and giving peace to the mother about the future of her child.
Basically what I'm telling myself from this post is I need to understand where I can help right here where I am in the world, before I work overseas. Get to know my community and the needs of the community I live in before I can help in another community.
