Nursing students to bring aid, gain experience during African practicum
March 11, 2010 9:00 AM
As members of Rally for Rwanda, eight StFX nursing students are organizing fundraisers for hospital supplies and aid to bring for their nursing practicum in Rwanda.
Caroline Lutes, Kendra Miller, Kathy Cress-Waugh, Sarah Tracey, Kendra Myers, Hillary Rand, Jennifer Fougere, and Jessica MacLean will travel to the African nation to work in a Rwandan hospital. Professor Elsa Jensen will accompany them.
To raise money, they will be hosting a silent auction on the afternoon of Friday, March 12, at Piper’s Pub. Available items include donations from Antigonish businesses, including a free manicure and haircut, a stay at a local hotel, and artwork. Tickets for a gift basket worth over $125 are also available.
All funds will go towards buying medical supplies for the Rwandan hospital in which they will work for four weeks. Lutes notes it recently ran out of such staples as hospital gauze.
The hospital is organized into several sections connected by outdoor corridors.
Previous fundraisers hosted by Rally for Rwanda include a pancake breakfast and a concert at Piper’s Pub. Future events include a bottle drive scheduled for Saturday, March 20.
Students are personally responsible for the costs of their trip with approximately $1,800 for travel costs alone.
Lutes has been waiting to take this trip since she was a high school student, explaining she chose to attend StFX based on the availability of the program.
All nursing students are required to log working hours in a hospital in order to graduate. Lutes explains that many StFX students choose to work at local St. Martha’s Regional Hospital or the IWK Health Centre in Halifax. The eight participants will be exposed to completely different scenarios in Rwanda, however.
“It’s basically just for us to experience the difference in the social determinants of health.
[Throughout our four years at StFX], we are constantly taught that poverty is the main determinant of a person’s health. [The trip] will be the polar opposite of what we’ve experienced in our nursing career so far,” she details.
Rwanda suffers from high prevalence rates of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Many of the patients will also be touched by the on-going effects of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
“In the nursing program, the social determinants of health are practically shoved down our throats,” Lutes says with a laugh.
“They affect a person’s ability to be healthy. The biggest deciding factor is income, but it’s also related to housing, gender, race, education, and early childhood education. Where Rwanda is so impoverished, there are huge health disparities.”
While they will have translators, the students must communicate with patients who speak mostly mixtures of French and the indigenous Rwandan dialect.
“We’ll basically have to rely on gestures, body language, or ask the preceptors to convey something for us. But 90 per cent of language is in body language,” Lutes notes.
The students will provide much needed support to the overwhelmed hospital staff. Lutes notes that their presence may also help Rwandan nurses in other ways, as well.
“[Apparently], the nurses there love to have us. The Rwandan nurses aren’t as respected as they are here. Here, we’ll talk up to doctors, and they can’t really do that there. The really appreciate the respect that we give them because they don’t get it elsewhere. They also like being able to mentor students.”
The program is not officially affiliated with StFX, the Xtending Hope Partnership, nor the Coady International Institute, but is offered by Jensen based on her personal contacts in Rwanda.
Participants have been preparing for the trip throughout the year, meeting once or twice a month as a group.
