NURSES VISITING PATIENTS AT HOME AND RELAYING INFORMATION TO THE CLINIC: A VITAL PART OF HEALTH CARE AND ANTHROPOLOGICALLY APPROPRIATE

 This is a presentation I gave to a group of Visiting Nurses/Home Health Nurses.

I will write commentaries on each of the slides and hope that many nurses get to see this presentation.

When there is SUFFERING due to a Chronic Disease, the curing and healing aspects can be sought amongst all the people who are in touch with the patient.

Visiting Nurses, Home Health Nurses and Community Health Representatives are golden resources in the path of healing for the patients.

Pre-Covid and OJALA, post-covid my world was International Humanitarian Medicine, to which I will return.

I have worked with some great Diabetes Educators during my multiple visits to the USA. I am very grateful for their help and friendship and I think of my UmonHon Indian relatives Michele S and Ashleen BB, both of whom are Diabetes Educators.

Diabetes Care is best provided outside the Clinical Setting and various members of the team taking EQUAL responsibility for the healing outcome

Over the years, I have worked with Massage Therapists, Physical Therapists, Psychological counsellors, Pharmacists, Exercise Educators and each of us do the best we can.

Nurses are an INTEGRAL part of this team

At the Wellness Centre, you can bring your patients for a variety of services. 

One of the first observations I made when I began working with American Indians was that some were getting better and some patients were not getting better despite the therapy being more or less equivalent. I divided the patients receiving Medical care into three categories  A. those who had CHR Community Health Representative or Home visits by Nurses   B. Nurse Practitioners two of them who were Indians. C. Medical Doctors who were Family Physicians

Which group had the best outcome in terms of measured A1C? The group who had home health nurse visits (attached to the Clinic belonging to the Public Health Nurse System) and CHR!

Were the others not good at taking care of Diabetes? No that is not the conclusion. Patients felt much at home, could ask anything they desired and over the course of time they build up relationships.

The best diabetes care outcome was with Nurses/CHR with whom the patients had built a good RELATIONSHIP. More I read the history of Native people, the more I realize the importance of RELATIONSHIPS. Lakota say Mitakuye Oyasin, we are all related!

Native people are not impressed with where you went to medical school, whether your Doctor degree is in Audiology or what Board Certification you have. They are cognizant about one thing: Do you care for them. They are very good at assessing this because they can interpret symbols very well, in the context of their own lives.

At another Indigenous clinic I advised a visiting doctor to dress down from his Armani suits to something simple but clean as that particular group of Indians saw these symbols as symbols of oppression by white people.

We have to stop thinking of our bodies as MACHINES and our bodies do not follow mechanical equations. In each of our bodies someone lives who has a mind of their own.

Majority of the calories in the american diet comes from ultra processed food and a take out from PF Chang's is no exception. 

after a meal from PF Chang's the Blood sugar went up a good 60 mg/dl and what was important that it was not coming down as the time went by 

Our patient complicated the matter by eating an Indian Taco, there is nothing INDIAN about Indian Taco . It is like calling Taco John's a mexican taste..

Even the next day, his blood sugar remained high and only by cutting down on his meals and eating simple meals was he able to bring down his blood sugar.

Ultra processed food contain an enormous amount of chemicals with flavours of food and very seldom any FOOD of nutritional value. These chemicals interfere with the body's metabolism and may be responsible for the array of suffering and diseases and illnesses among the modern men and women