WEDNESDAY WOMAN – A voice for the nurses

PAULETTE DRAKES is very much aware her name is written in the bad books of many for her outspokenness, and for the close relationship she has with strictness. Nevertheless, these attributes are a must when representing nurses “in a professional way” – on and off the island.This WEDNESDAY WOMAN has been the president of the Barbados Nurses Association (BNA) for the past five years. She heads an organisation whose vision is to be the premier nursing body in Barbados – with regional and international networks, and the advocate for nurses and clients – providing leadership for quality health care.In an interview with the MIDWEEK NATION at the association’s Gibson House, Lower Collymore Rock, St Michael headquarters, Drakes, who has 36 years’ experience in nursing, said she was “not always a nurse”. The registered nurse explained that in 1970 she left her job as a teacher in Barbados to answer a “call for nurses to go overseas and help what was then called the mother country”. She journeyed to England seeking a nursing career; but that was not easy. After developing a new life and career in the “mother country”, the married mother of four returned home in 1982 on holiday. But, there would be no going back; she had to stay and nurse her 55-year-old mother diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.“I started working in Accident & Emergency at QEH [the Queen Elizabeth Hospital], and having been trained in the UK, I was very forthright. We were trained to speak up and speak out. “There was no question of if you saw something that you did not agree with, and you did not say anything because you did not want to offend anybody. So I came home forgetting that Barbados is a society that was a little closed and doesn’t take too kindly to forthright speaking.    “When I saw something I didn’t like, I would ask . . . . So I got into the bad books of many. I was always of the view that I am never going to be there and somebody would come in and attack my colleagues . . . . “If I saw anything at all that I didn’t agree with, bram! I would say it; and that didn’t go down too well with my seniors,” explained Drakes, who was one of the first midwifery students at the delivery of the world’s first test tube baby in Britain in 1978.It was Drakes’ no-nonsense attitude, boldness and fearlessness that contributed to her being elected BNA president. And, while she is aware nurses are looked down upon, she thinks many of the problems nurses face “stem from nurses not respecting themselves and people outside of the fraternity not respecting them”.“You ought to respect yourself. If you do, you will get the respect you deserve. If you disrespect yourself, then you can only reap what you sow. From your head to your feet should be well attired.“How you speak should identify you. I know that very often we want to be a part of the crowd, and there is nothing wrong with being a part of that crowd – as long as that crowd is at your level. And that level better be high.”Drakes believes that since nurses work in a professional environment, it is their bounden duty to improve their knowledge of their special area because it impacts on somebody else’s life, or their relatives’ or their friends’. “I always encourage nurses to continue gaining knowledge . . . so that they can help to guide doctors,” said the former clinical instructor in the nursing programme at the Barbados Community College.Drakes, who holds a mental health certificate in psychiatry and is a tutor in the Human Resources Department at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, shared some of her “aspirations for nurses in Barbados”.“I really want to see nurses in charge of nursing. Whether it’s psychiatric nursing, general nursing or midwifery, I want to see nurses in charge. “I want to see a faculty of nursing. I know that it’s not something I can get tomorrow, but I want persons to be looking in that direction.”Added the BNA head: “I do not want environmental health in charge of the nursing faculty. I do not want medical laboratory technicians in charge of nursing. I do not want anybody else in charge of nursing besides a nurse who is knowledgeable, or a nurse who has the intestinal fortitude to speak up and say this is what would take nursing forward. “Nursing is too dynamic to be managed by just any and every person!” Although it’s a fight, Drakes is not tired of carrying out her presidential responsibilities.“Sometimes my working environment does not appreciate that this is work too.  But if we can keep nurses calm, they wouldn’t have to worry about other things. “I can’t tell you that I have comfortable nurses out there; and this is because sometimes myself or otherBNA members are doing our jobs that pay us,” said the 63-year-old who is looking forward to handing over the BNA presidency to “a younger member next year”.