Taking care of healthcare workers

By Philip Rushton

There's great people who work mental health who have extraordinary patience and gifts to help people who are incapacitated or unable to cope on their own without assistance. Health care workers spend years in studies and lonely frustrating practicums, working long hours on energy and determination alone with some support from family and friends.

However, that's less mentioned than when something goes wrong like Melissa Ekkelenkamp walking off ward in Edmonton, everyone jumps in to search or points fingers. However, there are everyday patient-centric policies and procedures in place. When internal investigations happen, improvements will be made. Dedicated people have the trust of families who have caring for their relatives with home-care.

Mental health care is one of those hot-button issues to be tip-toed around until things go wrong. One doesn't have to look hard to find health care working.

When working in small but mighty community partnerships with Alberta Health care programs and projects on shoe-string budgets. Miracles despite funding cuts, though social programs are sometimes first to feel over-stretched.

Now I know some compassionate and hard working nurses, social workers and care-aids; even when I'm checking into ER or phoning HealthLink without having a doctor, I can see nurses are trying hard to balance needs.

Others I know who work in mental health would feel guilty if they lost one of their patients. On good days, patients just want to talk about normal subjects and have their worries addressed. On bad days, when depression and delirium hits, nurses and care aids dig down for extra patience and grace to deal with those under their charge.

So for the Ekkelenkamp family worried about their daughter and their sister in Edmonton for nearly two weeks, for people who know first-hand about how vulnerable people with mental barriers can become, our hopes and prayers are with them that she is found okay.

So a thanks to the volunteers who are out there looking for her. Kudos to the strength of healthcare workers who treat it as more than just a job. A thank-you and support from the province when things are running smooth would be good too.



PS: there are no photos of mental health nurses to protect their patients' privacy, so on annoying side-note it's really really hard to find a non-sexy or non-recruiter's website nurse photo.... lots of photos of Nurse Jackie, but she's not exactly a shining example of good nursing profession. More on that later... very deep and divided topic....

Thanks for cute drawing to an artist from S. Korea:
http://windship.deviantart.com/

Also, although a British nurse, meh... caring for babies is pretty universal.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Nursing_baby.jpg