AN INSIGHT INTO SOCIAL MARKETING IN NURSING

Social Marketing. This was the most animated discussion I recently had with one of our young, bright doctors in the Center and if I have to be honest, the first time, I have come across. I pondered as we walked through our discussion and realized that during the span of years I've done nursing, a very large part of it was actually social marketing. I was marketing not those toothpaste or soaps. I was marketing health.

If you follow the news reports in Southern Philippines, it is possible that you have stumbled upon the Moros fighting for their independence. This struggle continues till today. I was in one of those areas as a public health nurse. It was the field of nursing I opted because I love the challenges of the community. I saw this when I was a student nurse.

My first assignment was the remotest part of Zamboanga City, the City of Flowers, in Southern Philippines. It should have been okay because that was where I was born, grew up, schooled. But I was a thorough city girl but such is the ways of nursing that one cannot say NO when duty calls. It was a very rugged mountainous terrain which was just perfect for the insurgency movement to thrive. Our van was stopped by men with guns while crossing this narrow road covered by forests and mountains. They had a patient they wanted seen urgently. In my professional career, I think I did my first social talk that moment. Fresh from school and oozing with confidence and courage, I went on to explain what needed to be done; the health center is not far away. They were grateful and sped away. That was my first encounter on a bright day with these fighters. That was my first working day as a salaried public health nurse. I had my first patient under such extreme circumstances, where they had to save and at the same time, flee for their lives, for something they so passionately believed in. The best part was, I was extremely focused. Were these fighters enemies or not? They were seen as enemies of the government. To me, they weren't. They were people in most urgent need of medical attention. At that particular moment, I saw them as I saw others in their best circumstances, as I saw myself. They were not different than all of us. Yet, they were different because they had a mission and zeal to achieve that mission in the manner they know. I couldn't be judgmental. I could only appreciate that zeal and understood at that time, the cause they were fighting was a losing battle all the way.

I used to do domiciliary midwifery and I was called one evening to attend a delivery call at home. With my delivery kit, we call it a PHN Bag, I trekked the narrow, hilly roads till it was dark and like Florence Nightingale, we had a small lamp with us. I could see the anxiety and fear on the faces of the husband and his mother. I, a total stranger to these people and those surroundings, breathed in a lot of guts and intelligence to do the kind of talking which would help assuage those fears and anxieties including my own, look at the brighter things, look at the bright road ahead, and experience the feel of a new baby coming into the world. But the house was still far away. And it was really dark by then. God must have seen our ordeal and that baby was destined to be born because from somewhere, there came a man on a buffalo with a sled big enough to carry us. Riding on a sled, although not in a snow, we reached the house safely. Appeasing everyone, giving directions and as in a military camp, I took control of the situation. A lamp, old papers serving as under sheets, a piece of thread as umbilical tie and a blade, the water was boiling under a slow fire. The patient had a tough, long, exhaustive labor. The nearest healthcare facility was miles and miles away. I took the chance while explaining the situation we were in and with the family, made a decision. Mother and child were distressed but as I said, the baby was destined to be born. He was born dead with his cord thricely coiled round his neck. He was to be the first glorious baby of the family. And I couldn't save him. This was the first and only casualty I ever had in my care. Heavens forbid. As the attending nurse, it was extremely traumatic for me as is for everyone who would expect victory at the end of a battle. I lost the battle but I didn't lose my will. I was the nurse, the angel of mercy, who even at this most painful moment, had to rise to the occasion so that everyone maybe consoled of this sadness. No one will console the nurse but herself. Only a nurse can understand the travails of a nurse. We laugh. But we also cry. For our patients. For their pain. For their loss. For their loved ones. I consoled myself with the thought that the baby will return to his Creator and will be cared for lovingly by the angels. The mother although very tired was fine except for the anguish and pain of the loss of a child she so lovingly nurtured and carried with her.

As I recall this chapter of my career, I pray God will one day allow me to meet this baby. I just would like to say how sorry I am.

I don't sell toothpastes or soaps. I share life instead in the manner I know. I teach, I counsel the distressed, I console, I demonstrate skills to help at home, I motivate. I nurse by my patient's bed.

Nursing is social marketing.

This is my way.