By REBECCA BILLS
IT’S a day to celebrate the men and women who look after us at our most vulnerable times.
Monday 12 May is International Nurses Day and is an opportunity to thank those who are part of the largest group of health professionals in Australia.
This year, the International Council of Nurses has themed the day, ‘Nurses – A Force for Change’ and one local nurse, who is passionate about constantly bettering herself in her profession, is local woman and Emergency Department Associate Nurse Unit manager at the Angliss Hospital Sue Brown.
Ms Brown, with the support of the hospital, is learning Auslan to help patients who are presented to the emergency department from the deaf community.
“As far as Auslan is concerned, I become interested in learning it as my daughter dated a guy who was deaf,” she said.
“Then two years ago a young man came into the emergency ward and we had to organise an interpreter, and we were told we would have to wait 48 hours for an interpreter.
“He needed to go into theatre and we had to write everything down to relay what was going on – as you can imagine it’s not ideal.”
Auslan is sign language for the deaf and Ms Brown said after the incident with the young man she commenced her training to learn it.
“We’ve had five or six patients come through in the last couple of months that have been deaf and we have benefited through my training,” she said.
“As far as Auslan is concerned, it’s been lovely to learn a new language over the last two years”
Ms Brown said she eventually wanted to work a few days as a medical Auslan interpreter.
“Even to just be able to educate the deaf on medical issues like diabetes and being able to translate that to Auslan would be great,” she said.
“You could imagine if you came into the hospital and you couldn’t hear what was being said, you are in a lot of pain and trying to write a conversation down to understand what is going on can be extremely time consuming, frightning and sometimes not feasible.
“At least if we can use Auslan, I can explain clearly what is going on and understand their needs.”
Ms Brown said International Nurses Day was wonderful to see that they were being supported by the community.
“At the moment, there is a lot of aggression coming into the nursing department with angry patients coming in with drug and alcohol issues,” she said.
“So it is always good to be supported in anyway.”
