Friday Night Blog

Some of the most critical and prevalent issues in this culture would be substance abuse, diabetes, premature infants who have been exposed to substances.

Diabetes can be genetic but it is also due to the poor food choices and stressful environment.

As far as substance abuse goes, that can’t be genetics but it can be passed down through generations. If you are around or raised by people who abuse drugs or other substances it can influence you heavily to do the same thing. If your culture copes in that way is another way it can be passed down to someone. I learned at the Unto These Hills drama, that when the Cherokee people were basically held captive and forced to walk the trail of tears that the white soldiers would come and trade them different things in exchange for alcohol which is how the Cherokee people coped because they could not change their circumstances.

Premature infants who have been exposed to substances is a really big issue in this culture, which is due to many things, deficient knowledge and health maintenance. This stems off the big substance abuse issues, which trickles down in to newborn babies, who are fighting for their lives before they even take their first breath. This isn’t just a Cherokee issue though, this is a growing problem in America period. The lack of education of what drugs can do to your unborn fetus is an issue, when people are addicted it’s not so easy to just quit, and coming out even admitting you have a problem is an issue. This makes getting the help you need really hard to do and in the end this issues are passed along to the fetus.

The nurse’s role in health promotion and health maintenance is to provide education, and resources, it’s our job to stop an issue before it actually starts. The next portion would be screening which is secondary prevention but it helps to catch things early and stop them before they get out of hand. It’s our job to provide resources and to help in maintaining our patient’s health.

In my opinion the patient is always the center of the health care system here in Cherokee, healing the patient’s mind and body is important here, gathering all data and treating everything accordingly. I feel like it’s different at home, at the center of the health care system is money. They rules and regulations don’t always allow a person to do everything they can do for the patient, because they would be over stepping their boundaries. I feel like we are so busy checking off a list of what should and shouldn’t be done, we lose sight on caring for the patient entirely, holistically. I really wish we could move to a systems such as the one that Cherokee Hospital has.