wfn.org | Volunteer finds border eye-opening

[BethAH@mbm.org]

March 28, 2001
Beth Hawn
Mennonite Board of Missions
(219) 294-7523
<NEWS@MBM.org>

March 28, 2001

After difficult start, volunteer finds nursing on border
eye-opening

Grant Rissler is serving through Mennonite Voluntary Service as a
writer and photographer.  After spending a year as intern at the
Mennonite Central Committee United Nations office in Manhattan,
he is traveling for five months by bus to 20 other MVS and
Short-Term Mission sites, gathering the stories and experiences
of other volunteers and communities.  A weekly column by Grant
can be found on the web at www.MBM.org.

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (CHM/MBM) – When Randy Plett decided, with his
wife and three children, to leave his job as an oncology nurse in
Winnipeg, Man., and move here for a two-year MVS assignment, he
knew there would be a period of adjusting to a new job.  But he
didn’t think it would take five months just to get started.

When the Plett family arrived in July, they and the MVS support
committee thought that Texas would honor Randy’s Canadian nursing
credentials and he could begin his assignment with the
Brownsville Community Health Center immediately.

Texas didn’t.  In fact, Plett was told he needed to rewrite his
nursing exam, and to take an English proficiency exam, since he
was not a U.S. citizen, despite the fact that his first language
is English.  Because the English proficiency exam is given once a
year, Plett would need to wait almost 10 months before getting
his new credentials.  Frustrated, he decided to write the nursing
exam in Arkansas instead, which did not require the English
proficiency test, then transfer his credentials to Texas.  Still,
it was November before Plett received word that he had passed and
could finally begin his assignment.

“It’s tough to come into MVS and not feel useful,” he says.
Though he still managed to volunteer some with Campus Care, a
school-based division of the health center, and spent hours
studying for the upcoming exam, Plett found it frustrating.  “I
was never that type of person [to have free time].  I was always
busy.  But now I had everything pulled out from under me.  You
start to [have] doubts about your assignment.  [Instead of
giving] you feel like you’re bleeding MVS dry.”

In November, Plett was finally able to begin a nursing assignment
doing triage screening for the health center.  Though it is not
the assignment he had originally expected to fill, he is glad to
finally be helping.  In one morning, he had seen more than 20
patients in less than three hours.

“It’s always busy here,” he says.  “It never stops.”

During a tour of the offices, Plett talks about the large niche
the health center fills in the community.  Most of the patients,
he says, are uninsured.  Many of them are migrant workers or
illegal immigrants unable to get health insurance through their
work.  The health center, which provides basic family
practice-style services, as well as dental, OB-GYN, and child
immunization services, is the only non-emergency facility in the
area that will accept uninsured patients.  The current waiting
list for basic job physicals, which many people need to get jobs,
Plett says, extends into July.

“The need,” he concludes, “is huge.”

Though the job is fulfilling, it has brought up its own set of
broader frustrations.  “One has been that we can’t see enough
patients,” Plett says.  “There are not enough resources, not
enough time, not enough doctors.”

The Canadian background that gave Plett such trouble in beginning
his assignment provides him with a unique perspective on the
healthcare system he is now a part of in Brownsville.

“Coming from Canada, [the need] has been a real eye-opening
experience,” Plett says.  “It’s really hard sometimes, being from
a socialized healthcare system, seeing how many are falling
through the cracks here.  There is no social safety net,
especially for the undocumented and the migrant workers.  A huge
percentage of the population is uninsured.  They won’t go to the
hospital.”

Though Plett acknowledges that a government’s role in providing
health services is a complex question, he feels that the people
he treats are too often ignored by the government.

“Especially in the border towns,” he says, “it’s a social-justice
issue.  [U.S. President] Bush wants all these tax cuts. Why not
put it into expanding the number of people covered by Medicare
and Medicaid?  The haves in the country want more, and the
have-nots get less.”

Mennonite Voluntary Service is a joint program of the Commission
on Home Ministries of the General Conference Mennonite Church and
Mennonite Board of Missions of the Mennonite Church.
* * *

Grant E. Rissler       PHOTO AVAILABLE