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My role in this practicum experience is making food and encouraging cards, and then distributing them to my fellow nurses and neighbours. The cards are homemade and well designed, and they contain messages of hope to remind them that they should remain strong and hopeful since this pandemic too shall pass. Additional information in the cards is the precaution measures they should be exercising such as hand washing, social distancing, wearing of protective face masks, symptoms to look out for and the emergency number to call in case such symptoms show. The food I distribute is not homemade. It is food bought at the grocery stores and supermarkets. It includes bundles of flour, rice, vegetables and fruits such as lemons, and oranges.
I started this exercise three weeks ago. So far, I have distributed 18 cards to six of my colleagues and eight neighbours. As for the food, I have shared thirty bundles of flour, fifty kilograms of rice, and several vegetables and fruits with six families outside our neighbourhood who have children and older adults. These families are of the people who have lost their jobs and sources of income during this current health crisis. The citrus fruits such as lemon and oranges are to ensure that they have a boost of vitamin C which will, in turn, boost their immune systems. The food ensures that they do not run out of face starvation at this time.
I have experienced three main challenges in meeting these community needs. The first challenge is limited finances to purchase the food supplies, and hence I cannot reach a more significant number of families. Second is the access to these families, and some of them decline to receive the foodstuffs due to pride. The third one is the ready availability of food supplies and card materials. This is because most stores are also closed at this time due to fear of contracting the virus as well as the greatly reduced number of customers since most people have chosen to stay at home with minimal shopping and expenditure.
There will be a continued need after the pandemic passes. This is because those who lost their jobs will not immediately get new jobs. This has been made worse by the hard-hit that the world and the American economy has experienced due to the pandemic. Therefore, the families will still need food supplies and the cards to remind them that everything will work out in due time. The cards will contain a message of hope and how to seek mental healthcare when the need arises. This is because the members of these families, especially the breadwinner, may experience intense stress and sink into depression due to the hard life situation.
As a nurse, service leadership means practising actions that lead to the enrichment of lives of individuals, provide better services to the organization I work for and ultimately lead to a world full of justice and care. For me to become a servant leader, the need to serve should emanate naturally from my heart, not just helping due to following set rules and policies. I should then make the sober decision to serve and lead in doing so. Servant leadership, therefore, requires one to be a servant before they are a leader. This means prioritizing the needs of others before mine, ensuring that the served become better, healthier, freer and wiser.
The pandemic has changed my view in several ways. I have realized that lie is a gift that is not guaranteed. A single illness can deprive humans of life in a very short period of time. I have also learned that one should always stay prepared, whether they see an emergency or not. This is because this pandemic caught most people unawares, with no savings to support their consumption and other needs at this period. I have also learnt to appreciate my nursing career more. At this period, nurses have played a very crucial role in the saving of lives and restoration of hope.
My greatest servant leader role model has been the head nurse at the organization I work for. She has fully dedicated her time to the victims of the pandemic. She has made a personal initiative and gone the extra mile to purchase and distribute protective masks to both ill and healthy patients. She has also printed brochures and pamphlets that contain very detailed information about the coronavirus. She thus distributes these brochures and flyers to all who come to the hospital, whether infected by the virus or not. Additionally, she purchased large scale hand sanitizers and offered them to the families of patients diagnosed with the disease. The most inspiring thing is that she does all these from her finances, without asking for any funding from the hospital or anyone else. Hers is an epitome of servant leadership.
Therefore, my takeaways from this experience are to help those in need and be the best version of a servant leader that I can be. I have also learned just how valuable life is. I will always take better care of it from now onwards. I remain hopeful that this too shall pass, and we shall all heal from the losses we have suffered.