Nurses join hands to help victims of gender violence
AS GENDER-BASED violence continues unabated, at least 500 nurses across Jamaica will this year receive training to deal with victims of abuse who turn up at health facilities for treatment.
The move is part of the Nursing Now Global initiative, and already, six local nurses have been trained to prepare others to undertake the sensitisation of the 500 nurses.
President of the Nurses’ Association of Jamaica (NAJ), Carmen Johnson, said that not all victims of abuse would readily identify the perpetrators of violence.
“We want to train our nurses to be able to recognise violence against our women and children and also how to treat with it, how to respond to these women when they come in, and where to refer them to for support,” she said after the launch of the 2020 International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston on Friday.
The six nurses were trained by PAHO. However, Johnson told The Gleaner that nurses have, in general, been lobbying against gender-based violence, citing Orange Day marches among initiatives they have used to raise awareness.
Orange Day is a United Nations campaign to end violence against women.
The NAJ president said the organisation was also concerned about gender-based violence among nurses.
“If the statistics are correct, which they are, that one in every three women suffers or has experienced violence from an intimate partner, it simply means that it is also amongst us within the healthcare populace,” she said.
Practical nurse Suianne Easy was brutally murdered by her common-law husband, Doran McKenzie, on January 12 at the Greater Portmore, St Catherine, house they shared. McKenzie, who was a soldier, then killed himself.
DEVASTATED
Johnson said that Easy’s colleagues at the St Joseph’s Hospital in Kingston were shaken by her murder.
“They were devastated, and the director of nursing service night after night had to be there late evening trying to create that support for the staff because it affected not only nursing personnel, but everybody who worked at that institution,” she said.
The nursing union leader said that they have developed a database of agencies that assist victims of domestic violence, which is generally shared with women suspected of being abused.
Chief nursing officer at the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Patricia Ingram Martin, noted that in addition to training the 500 nurses with the knowledge and skills to effectively support and empower survivors of violence, instruction on gender-based violence will also be undertaken in nursing schools, and policy guidelines strengthened on addressing survivors of violence.