17410: Nlbo: About a Globe Article on Haitian Nursing Assistants (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Nlbo@aol.com

I read an article on the Globe last week  about the  plight of Haitian health aid workers,written by Monica Rohr. I thought it only relates to Boston, but when  I read it again, some of these references struck my attention. I think I will share them since  Haitian women working in those conditions are all over the diaspora. I hope this will stimulate some interdisciplinary conversation.
"...The cause resonates throughout the area’s Haitian community which numbers about 50,000.About 50 to 60 percent of Haitian women work as nursing assistants, earning an average of $10.00 an hour ...
"...About  some 90 percent of certified nursing assistants in Greater Boston are of Haitian origin. There are about 22,000 certified nursing assistants in the states."
What are the influential stakeholders in the Haitian community going to do with these statistics? Have the clergy, teachers, and media seen this article? Based on my experience dealing in writing with active  church members and  Catholic and protestant clergy as well as the media I can’t hesitate to say the majority of them have not seen this article. I work primarily with an international population. I don’t have any collegial relation  with Haitian teachers . However as a veteran and involved educator, I would have known if the Haitian teachers’ organization have met in the last ten years or so or if they were an active teachers’ association.
As I read this article more carefully, the content should be everybody’s concern. If 90% of nursing assistants are Haitian, we are talking about  close to 20,000 women (19,280) mostly mothers working long hours to support their families, cars, rents, and send remittances to Haiti. If we base on the 50,000 population that the Globe said, not 70,000 to 80,000 as estimated, we are talking of close to half of the Haitian work force.
Most teachers are aware of President Bush’s educational act” No children left behind.” If mothers are working so much to provide, how much attention is given to the children of those nurses’ aides?
How will the mothers’ absence affect their performance in school and their long term outcome in life? What would the sons and daughters of these 20,000 women be 20, 30 years from now? A recent globe article entitled “ Left behind” revealed that only 47% of 10th grade black high school students pass the MCAS when they first take it whereas 82% white and 77% Asians excell on those state wide mandotary exams.  Where do Haitians fit in those 47%? How much communication exist between the clergy, those women who are in their churches everyday, the schools, the colleges so structured after school programs can be provided for these children? Where are those kids of those mothers who have to start working at 7:00 or work between 3:00 and 11? We all know that they work “doubles”.
In terms of economic, educational and human investment, the health aide worker mentioned in the Globe is 37. She has been been on the job for 14 years which means she was at the prime of  her youth, 24 when she started working as a nursing assistant. If she had invested 10 years of her life to learn English, get a bachelor’s degree and be a nurse, she would not have to suffer that humiliation. She could have to work less time, less hours. I bet she is working “ double or  overtime,”  words that are becoming part of the Creoglish repertoire.  Many of those nurses’ aides after 14 years,  have bought houses here and in Haiti, and/or drive SUV’s.  What is worth more than respect? Education in this country gives you some sort of respect. There is racism every where. A patient may not feel comfortable with a black nurse, but they won’t spit at her, use racial epithets and the rest of it. One can argue pro or con.
Investing in education has a long term impact in the community , country, and society as a whole, something Haitians don’t do. Once they have a degree and/or a job, they don’t pursue on their education, learning or reading about other fields to add or enhance what they were trained for. Can we imagine, if we only have 2,000 nurses out of the close to 20,000 nurses’ aides. Many of those health workers  have been nurses in Haiti. They can learn English in 2 or 3 years and get a bachelor’s from 4 to 8 years if they go part time.  If they get not only a B.S, but master’s , PHDs in nursing, the Haitian community can have its own nursing school. 2,000 nurses may be exaggerating in the Haitian setting. Let’s say 500, even 200-300 and out of those, there are 40 with masters’ and 10 with PHd’s who can teach. Out of the 10, 3 are doing research with doctors and other scientists. As a black person, sickle cell anemia  and  fibrosis ( growth in the uterus, fibom) come to mind. I would like to read some articles in New England Journal of Medicine by a Haitian nurse on nursing care for the AIDS patient.  Can we imagine if 200-300 nurses in Boston are communicating with other areas in the diaspora to organize  training in Haiti for future Haitian nurses?
If the nurses communicate  and interact with doctors, educators, scientists, researchers to help them  teach better, MBA’s( Master’s of Business administration) to manage the schools, writers to tell the mainstream media what we are doing, clergy and active lay ministers to  do the work of service that Jesus did, by organizing child care services, after school programs for the health workers, do we visualize what the Haitian community only in Boston would have or would look like? I know of Haitians who have been in Boston since l956. Is that asking too much in the Athens of America?
The Glorbe article generated these ideas as an educator who never had a chemistry course, but  trying to look at what could happen in the nursing field and linking it with education. ( Don’t I get the nerves? ) Multiply that by other professions who can do the same thing. From what I notice, everybody is happy and feel good where they  are. They know everything because they are in apparently “ visible”  (I don’t want to say leadership) position.” There is no medium of communication to share those ideas to the Boston community. These home health aides are not in the internet.
Every Haitian knows everything. However in all those professions that we have, how is the community  “passing on the torch?”  How many are we who are teaching future Haitian nurses, doctors, engineers, educators, ministers etc.? It requires more than a degree or a job in medicine, nursing , journalism or whatever  field to be able to “ pass on the torch” in this 21rst century.”
I stress on mother,  not only mothers are the primary care takers, the number of single parents, single women heading households in the black communities is stagnant. Check the U.S census web site.
Since the beginning of the year I have been proposing a big summit in the Boston Haitian community in 2004. I hope these statistics, this article in the Globe has given the Haitian leaders a “food for thought “ and has  been a stimulus for most Haitian " community leaders" to pay attention to the printing world.
Nekita