NEW YORK NURSE: September 2007
by Rolando Tomas Infante
Yvonne Barrow has worked at the Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx for more than 20 years. Dealing with maximum-security procedures and menacing-looking guard dogs are a way of life for her and her colleagues.
But the 11 RNs who care for inmates also face another unique challenge: The correctional center floats on water.
The jail is housed in a five-story barge that was built to help ease the overcrowding in city jails in the early 1990s. Since 1992, the facility, which is the length of two football fields, has housed up to 870 medium- to maximum-security inmates or detainees awaiting trial.
“During the winter it is very cold inside, and during the summer it becomes unbearably hot,” said Barrow. “And the barge rocks on a windy day, since we are literally in the water.”
Barrow and her colleagues have adapted to their adverse work environment and even relish their opportunity on the barge.
“On a daily basis, I use all of my nursing skills,” said Barrow. “We treat an incarcerated population that, because of their upbringing and surrounding environment, don’t know any better when it comes to being educated health consumers and being medically sound.”
The nurses’ mission is to treat the inmates, administer their medication, and keep them safe by preventing sick inmates with contagious diseases from affecting the rest of the population. The nurses say they feel safe at the barge because a guard is always present when they are treating an inmate.
“I feel more safe inside here than in any other place I worked on the outside,” said Barrow. “It has been my experience that the inmates will not harm those who are caring for them.”
In fact, when a lockdown was declared during their nine-hour shift on this day, they hardly batted an eye.
The nurses collectively said that people often get the wrong impression about correctional healthcare and their work at the barge – that it is more about enforcement than practicing nursing.
“We suffer from the misconception that we are just ‘jailhouse nurses,’” said Barrow. “We use all of our nursing skills dealing with a male population that is medically abandoned. Some have had no health care until they come here.”
Conditions affecting the detainees include HIV-AIDS, hypertension, asthma, diabetes, and heart disease. The nurses provide HIV counseling to inmates who have just learned of their status, walk the inmates through treatment options, and dispel myths about HIV.
“We do indeed practice a different type of nursing here,” said Lorin Robertson. “We handle the incoming physicals and we counsel those who need it. The nurses that take care of the inmates from this barge combine all of the nursing specialties into one practice. Unlike in a hospital setting, we feel completely safe and we are giving care to the perpetually neglected.”