Our Society's Immune System: It Is Highly Reflective on How We Have Dealt with the Current Pandemic
Estrella Evangelista DNP,MEd, PMHNP-BC
Nurse academician, researcher, informatician, and data science clinician, a learning learner CYT 200. Passionate about mental wellness and a holistic approach to healthcare
The virus is overall based on the person’s immune system... a stress triggered/mediated response. How is our country’s immune system? Did we respond well?
“Much is yet unknown about specific cytokines and their roles in disease. But the likelihood of disease in general, in a country or state is not so mysterious. It is what you see on daily basis and chose to ignore; Often, it’s a matter of what societies and a group of people choose to tolerate.”
“America has empty hotels while people sleep in parking lots. We are destroying food while people go hungry. We are allowing individuals to endure the physiological stresses of financial catastrophe while bailing out corporations. With the coronavirus, we do not have vulnerable populations so much as we have vulnerabilities as a population. Our immune system is not strong.” The Atlantic
As a healthcare system we are being reimbursed by treating patients by the number, when they are humans. We are medicating and silencing people who are stressed out when they need to express emotions; we are allowing business corporations, insurance companies, to make money out of our health when it should be our personal responsibility and then blame others for our illnesses; we go to ERs for problems that primary doctors can fix; we discharge people with instructions that says DC HOME take your meds when they don’t have a home to go to nor money to buy meds; isn’t it ironic that we’re bailing out huge corporations when we should be bailing out ourselves?
In Nursing, we cry for help but we only listen to our own voices; We like to talk and offer solutions but we refuse to be heard; we are the ost trusted professionals but we don’t trust each other, nor we don’t trust ourselves enough to own the power that we have as professionals. We are siloed as shit, academics, researchers, leaders, clinicians, all in our own ivory towers. All of us in the clinical world are and will continue to drown even after this pandemic. I’m hoping that our hibernating brothers and sisters can open a window and throw a rubber floatie or two for us to hang on to. We expect action but we allow fear to consume us into inaction; our benevolence often leads us to our own demise as a profession. We like to preach to our patients yet we fail to adapt the same lifestyle that we talk about; have smiles on our faces yet we have so much deep seated pain, aggression and hurt and trauma. This s—- t all needs to come out before all of us will implode and self destruct after this pandemic.
Enough already with sugar coating the bullying, the compassion fatigue, the mental health crisis that will hit us all after the pandemic. Demand for debriefing, speak up! Lobby for the right working conditions, arm in arm, together. Don’t leave anyone behind!
We have to change whom we want to police our practice, whom we direct our aggression toward, our energies and our commitment. As a profession and as advocates we recognize that our loyalty should be to our patient. But my peeps, our God in heaven can only do so much without PPE. He gave us a factory-quality- control approved immune system. Society has pretty much given us a working moral compass to do the right thing. Right?
So if you still don’t get it: we don’t need dead nurses! We need all nurses to be strong, healthy, thinking leaders who are not afraid to dialogue and ...remember hello? We too, are humans first!
Remember? The normal instinctive flight or fight reaction that have been trampled upon over time, you know where the stewardess remind you each time you’re on a plane? Put the mask on yourself first? Well our first priority should be rekindling our personal commitment and relationship with:
No 1: OURSELVES
No 2: OUR Families
That is what is required for a strong professional immune system to fight the challenges of pandemics to come.Namaste’