Nursing in a New Light

By Ruthie Bailey, Junior Nursing Student

Over Spring Break, I had the wonderful opportunity to go to Haiti on a mission trip with some of my fellow nursing students and one pre-medical student.  We were hosted by Faculté des Sciences Infirmières (FSIL) nursing school in Leogane, Haiti and were able to experience working alongside other nursing students, learning and growing together. The nursing students welcomed us with open arms and God created a bond between us.

Together we were able to put on two medical fairs for the community.  People came from the community.  Activities were set up for the children while the adults were able get their vital signs checked.  They received some health teaching, saw a physician, and were given prescriptions to receive medications from the pharmacy that we set up. This was a great experience to be able to interact with people in the community and have a hand in providing the care that they needed.  As a nursing student, I was able to use my skills to be a blessing to others who desperately needed medical care.

The overall attitude of the nursing students was really inspiring to me.  They had such a strong desire to learn all that they could to be able to help their country.  Their focus was not on being able to graduate and then to provide for their family, but they had a greater vision to make a difference in their country using the skills, gifts, and talents that the Lord gave to them. There was no complaining about how much work they had to do or that they had another paper to write, but they were inspired to do what was necessary in order to learn everything that they could and learn it well, in order to better serve. As a nursing student, I had to step back and re-examine where my heart was in studying and remind myself again why it was that I was studying to become a nurse.  I had always had a heart to do missionary nursing when I graduated, but had become consumed with the day to day tasks required for nursing and did not have the greater purpose constantly front of mind. God reminded me through this experience that he had a greater plan for me and that my focus in nursing should be more about how he would use nursing in my life to bless my country and others in the future.

In addition to working with the nursing students to put on the medical fairs, our team visited several hospitals. When we visited, I was struck with the nursing shortage and the shortage of supplies. With the great poverty in the country of Haiti, there are just not enough resources to provide adequate medical care to the people that so desperately need it.  The nurses worked very hard and used what they did have to provide the best care under the circumstances. It made me think about the nursing shortage that we say we have in the United States -- and I believe that we do -- however in Haiti the nursing shortage coexists with a shortage of adequate supplies.

At one point, in one of the hospitals, we visited a room where there were children everywhere grabbing at us. We were told that all of these children had been brought to the hospital by their parents and that their parents had never come back to get them.  I was very disheartened by this and that these children did not have moms and dads to go home to.   With the poverty in Haiti, people cannot always afford to care for their children and this is a way of making sure that they are in a safe place.  I was reminded that Christ is our Father and that these children needed to know that their Father in heaven loved them.  I was greatly impacted by this experience and I was called to pray that these children would find homes and would be cared for.

Through my experience in Haiti, my eyes were opened to the needs of people and how nursing can make a difference in people’s lives. It was a blessing to be able to work with the Haitian nursing students and see their heart’s desire to learn all they could to go out and help their country.  I was inspired to want to have that kind of focus and attitude that is Christ-centered and study nursing for the greater purpose of how God will use my skills to make a difference and bless others.  There is such a need for great nurses who will provide holistic care. It was a blessing to see God work through the nursing students in Haiti and to have the opportunity to be a part of this mission trip as a nursing student using my skills.  I hope that other nursing students, as well as students studying any major, will take the things that they have learned to go out and allow God to use them to bless others, both in the United States and abroad.