Nurses on the frontline
Nurses on the frontline
It takes a very special person to be a City Mission nurse because our clients and their problems can be so complex and challenging.
Our lead nurse Raewyn puts it like this:
“You need to be highly adaptable. Nurses here have to be empathetic, but also firm when they need to be so they can say no when that is necessary. They need to be very confident, good communicators and able to advocate for our clients with hospital and GP services.”
It’s a daunting list of attributes on top of great nursing skills, but that’s why our nurses are one of the strongest (and kindest) NGO teams in the city and they make a huge difference to our ability to care for our people.
They each have different areas of expertise that they focus on, but all jump in with expert nursing if a serious incident crops up.
Raewyn, Carol and Sarah are our withdrawal management nurses, and they help people with addiction problems detox at home.
Sarah is also a qualified nurse prescriber, so can fast-track prescription medicines that our clients need like antibiotics and withdrawal medicine. She is also qualified to take blood for tests.
Julie is our expert mental health nurse and can also take blood. She works with clients across our men’s and women’s emergency accommodation services, doing assessments and liaising with mental health services, as well as general nursing.
She also liaises with the roster of nine doctors who volunteer for us, so we can have a doctor come in every week to see our shelter clients for free.
Te Arahi fills the community nurse position funded by Southern Cross Health Trust. Her job is to improve the health of all clients across the Mission and catch problems before they escalate to needing hospital-level care. This covers things like education, vaccinations, linking people in with GPs, and doing well-health assessments.
Raewyn says a standout characteristic of working as a City Mission nurse is seeing people with such complex problems. Our nurses find themselves dealing with people who have an extraordinary array of problems, who are often experiencing deeply chaotic lives and who need support because they don’t have the resources or knowledge to look after their health properly.