In a touching talk Carolyn Jones, a photographer and film maker working mainly to celebrate the invisible population brings to us a story, “As patients, we usually remember the names of our doctors, but often we forget the names of our nurses...” Jones enters the world of nursing with her own experience of facing breast cancer and later when her parents were battling for their life.
Later, says Jones, “I was asked to do a project that would celebrate the work that nurses do. I started with Joanne (the nurse who looked after her), and I met over 100 nurses across the country. I spent five years interviewing, photographing and filming nurses for a book and a documentary film. With my team, we mapped a trip across America that would take us to places dealing with some of the biggest public health issues facing our nation—ageing, war, poverty, prisons. And then we went places where we would find the largest concentration of patients dealing with those issues.”
An example given by Jones, “Bridget Kumbella was born in Cameroon, the oldest of four children. Her father was at work when he had fallen from the fourth floor and really hurt his back. And he talked a lot about what it was like to be flat on your back and not get the kind of care that you need. And that propelled Bridget to go into the profession of nursing. She's devoted her career to understanding the impact of our cultural differences when it comes to our health.”
Jones speaks of a male nurse up on the Appalachian mountains. He drives across hard terrain to visit his patients. What is his source of compassion? There is another male nurse who works with soldiers coming right from the battlefield and having been a soldier himself, “...he is able to relate to and help heal the veterans in his care.”
A moving story
Perhaps the most telling story related by Jones is, “Sister Stephen runs a nursing home in Wisconsin called Villa Loretto. The entire circle of life can be found under her roof. She has the opportunity to adopt local farm animals...she enthusiastically brings them in...I needed to take her away from Villa Loretto to film part of her story. And before we left, she went into the room of a dying patient. She leaned over and she said, ‘I have to go away for the day, but if Jesus calls you, you go. You go straight home to Jesus.’ I was standing there and thinking it was the first time in my life I witnessed that you could show someone you love them completely by letting go. We don't have to hold on so tightly.”
Salutations to those who care with such compassion and love!
Web link:
https://www.ted.com/talks/carolyn_jones_
a_tribute_to_nurses#t-409056
