Camp Barnabas Volunteers
Thanks for forwarding the information about the need for volunteers at Camp Barnabas. They were able to fill their need of 23 volunteers within a 2-day period. What a blessing!!!!
I arrived home yesterday after a very spiritually fulfilling week. I took 6 amazing nursing students that worked non-stop the whole week. This term of campers was a difficult group to care for in the respect that all were physically and cognitively disabled. Most were non-verbal. We gave 30 tube feedings a day and many more continuous feedings through out the night time hours. In addition we gave hundreds of medications and treatments in between mealtimes. We even had a dehydrated camper who needed IV fluids and one of our students started on the first try (which is not easy on a dehydrated kid with CP). She had much encouragement from the other students and staff.
We even had a camper who has a trach with oxygen and has a continuous oxygen saturation monitor. He was very fragile with his respiratory needs and required 4 treatments a day, with each treatment lasting 2 hours. He also needed 24-hour nursing observation with suctioning of his trach. Our students took 4-hour shifts each night to sit with him and monitor his needs.
The students were AMAZING, and the doctors and nurses said over and over each week that this boy would not have been able to stay at camp if it weren’t for the nursing students. During the daytime hours we were able to take him to some of the indoor activities, and we even took him swimming in a water wheelchair on one of the cooler days. This endeavor required much assistance from the students. I introduced the mother of this child to the students when she arrived to pick him up. She cried when she heard about their hard work and dedication to her son’s care. She thanked them many times through her tears and compliments. As you can imagine, this time at camp for her son allowed her and her husband a much needed break.
In addition to their hard work the students were able to spend some time at the pool and even took a float trip on the Shoal creek. Not once did I hear a student complain or ask to be relieved from their duties. They worked as a team with the other Medical Staff, and I was asked to “PLEASE bring students to this term next year!” One of the ladies was a director of a home care agency in Moberly, Missouri, and offered each one of them a job at her institution if they ever found themselves in that part of the state.
In their spare time the students wrote a song that the Medical Team sang at our last lunch time together in the Mess Hall. We received a standing ovation from the campers, volunteers, and staff. The words of the song are as follows, to the tune of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game:” (FYI–the Fish House is the name of the Health Center)
Take me up to the doctor,
Take me up to the nurse.
Band-aides for scrapes and insect bites,
Don’t forget Benadryl at night!
Oh, it’s root, root, root for the campers,
When they have fun it is great!
We give breakfast, lunch, and dinner meds
At the OLE FISH HOUSE!
The theme for this year was “DIRT.” We discussed about how many of us are like “fertile soil” and are ready to receive Christ in our lives, and yet there are many of us who are somewhat like “rocky soil,” or maybe even like “sandy soil” that needs more cultivation, fertilization, and tender care to be ready to accept Christ. I believe a door was opened this week for some of the students to explore what awesome things God has to offer.
I would like to thank you for supporting me in continuing this opportunity for the students and myself. It by far has to be the BEST week out of my whole year. It allows me to regroup and rejuvenate myself for the upcoming year, so that when things are tense and stressful I can recall the true reason why I am a nurse. I call it “Nursing in the Raw,” since we don’t have the wonderful technology or extra disciplines (pharmacy, OT, PT, Pastoral Care, and so on) that we have in the hospital setting. The Med Team does it all, and the students truly understand what nursing and team work is all about.
I could go on and on about this wonderful place and the true peace that is experienced at Camp Barnabas.
Tina Tarter-Hamlet, MSN, RN
Assistant Professor of Pediatric Nursing
St. John’s College of Nursing at SBU