A Frustrated Nurse Writes About Poor Conditions in Evacuee Shelters

I guess the moral of the story is....if you are a nurse don't feel free to attempt to validate any negative feelings. You are to be the quiet, always smiling type or risk being called a martyr, selfish, or....eek..racist! How sad not to be able to lean on the support of fellow nurses when needed. Some of us don't live in the land of rose colored glasses...but feel free to let me know where that is...it sounds nice!

land, don't feel like no one appreciates what is going on..maybe someone will the vents and see themselves in that situation and be a better person down the road
there are good people and bad people and a stressful situation will not not change that...remember the good ones and shake off the bad

Landrn,
I believe people do try and validate other people,s feelings. That does not mean that we walk in their shoes. It does not mean that we perceive things the same way even. Sometimes we have to agree to disagree.

I do not believe in any sort of of put down generalizations of others though. It is not rose colored glasses I wear at all. I have seen the good ,the bad, and the ugly. But they came in all shapes, colors ,sizes,sex, from the illiterate to the doctorates, the poor to the rich.
It is why I try not to make generalizations. It is also why if I make a post I will not refer to what race the person might be, what size the person might be. I do not think that it would add to any feelings I would be try to express regarding an issue I would be having.

I hear you saying you feel there is no support of each other. I agree to disagree with that.

In responce to BBFRN. Dude, really you cant be serious. First off, there is nothing racially implied by that story. The only mention of a race being an issue was made by you. Why does everything that has nothing to do with race have to be transformed into something about race? Secondly, you may have had the wonderful experience of taking care of scared people just trying to survive and find their family members, but I have to tell you truthfully, if you are indeed being honest about this experience you claim to have had then you are most definately this expection and not the rule. I have had quite different exeriences too numerous to mention, and regardelss if I can attest to the truthfullness of the story from the nurse in LA, I can assure you the theme is very very much true. From working in an er for nearly a decade and volunteering at disasters, I can tell you, that a small portion, the advanced elderly and the very young, for the most part fit into the description you provide. The OVERWHEALMING majority of people fit into the description Sherri RN describes. If this is not true, then the things I see on a daily basis are merely figments of my imagination. I have been threatened by people of all races for not complying to their preconceived notion on how they should be taken care of and served. YESTERDAY...just yesterday 9/14/8, I took care of a 1 year old with a scorpion envomation. Mom showed up with family 30 minutes later....WITH FRESH DAIRY QUEEN! Yes, they actually stopped for something to eat before coming to the er to be with the 1 year old girl who was there alone. Please BBFRN, please, provide me if you can with a justification for that which would leave me feeling anything but enraged. I see this everyday, its either that or my corworkers and i are mass hallucinating these events. Its not a race thing, its what happens when entitlement occurs and people become too complacent with government taking care of them, and have no coping skills to take care of themselves. Help? Yes I'm all for it. Adult babysitting? Grow up! Not my job. Most nurses (my coworkers at least) will not do for someone things they can do for themselves. Why? Is it lack of compassion and caring? NO! Its because to do otherwise robs someone of their independence. That is a completely undignified thing to do to the human condition. I dont expect you'll agree with anything I've said, and will most likely label me as uncompassionate, but in my world by my experiences, this is reality as I see it.
DM

First, I am sorry for the impassioned response 1 of several of my posts caused. I think if you read the rest of them, then you would realize that you only picked out a small part of my contribution to the thread.

Second, I am not a dude. But I can see why you would think so, if you don't get my avatar.

Third- I never said the nurse who wrote the letter was a racist. I said I personally had received racially charged emails after Katrina, and that caused me to be suspicious of the origin of the letter posted in the OP.

Now, please go through the thread again, and read the rest of my responses. The only 'racial' thing I mention is in regard to emails received in the past. Nothing more. No one called the OP or the letter-writer racist.

And yes, my experiences having volunteered may be different than yours, but it doesn't make them untrue. I don't doubt your experiences. I worked in an inner city level 1 trauma hospital for years, including the ED.

Again, I'm sorry to have caused this reaction in you, but please read the whole thread to avoid misunderstanding. Thanks.

thank goodness that there are some great ER and other nurses out there to meet and appreciate/recognize ALL types of people. there are definitely people who have alot of feelings of entitlement as you sid. alot of people do have that sense of entitlement unfortunately. No doubt this causes alot of problems in the health care industry and takes some of the happiness out of those of us working- and takes away appreciation for health care people. oh well. concentrate on the good things and good people!! there are plenty of those people out there too!!! may we see and hear them everyday!!!
thanks for your opinions too though.

WOW! chapookie, thank you for sharing and volunteering in those horrible conditions. Hopefully, at least one person appreciated your hard work, which would make volunteering worth it. Stay strong and God bless.

Wow, that sounds totally discouraging! Unfortunately, I can imagine the scene very well.

I always thought it would be a great thing to volunteer at a disaster, but this letter is a big eye opener to that reality!

There are a lot of social ills in this world, and you would definitely be in the thick of it.

I witnessed similarly awful behavior from a dialysis patient 2 days ago.

She is in a rehab facility after breaking her hip, but has many medical problems mostly from neglecting her health and making poor lifestyle choices. She told me her home was destroyed in the hurricane and her husband was working with FEMA to get help. She also mentioned that she might be going home that night or the next day.

Later he husband showed up and she asked him about a hotel. He said "they're all booked". She started screaming at him "YOU BETTER GET US A HOTEL TONIGHT. I AIN'T STAYIN' HERE ANOTHER DAY! I REFUSE. YOU BETTER DO SOMETHIN' RIGHT NOW."

Oh, she was horrible! Here was her poor, distraught husband, exhausted from spending every waking hour trying to deal with this situation. Meanwhile she's lying around except for when she goes to physical therapy, oblivious to how difficult this situation is for everyone. Most of the staff still don't have power in their homes. Many of them are stressed out from dealing with getting an insurance adjuster over to their homes to asses the damage.

I said "Ma'am, every hotel from here to Austin, from here to Dallas and San Antonio is full. At least if you stay here you have a safe place to stay, air conditioning and three meals a day."

Of course, she was having none of it. She was just a spoiled, self-centered person who wanted what she wanted all the time and could care less about the problems anyone else was having.

It is yet another example of what has surprised me most about becoming a nurse - how awful people can be.