FF-2-98A<\/p>\n
ANNIE MOORE<\/u><\/p>\n
b. 1954<\/p>\n
Oakland, California<\/p>\n
\nThis one nurse who always worked in the burn unit said with a sick smile, “I’m so bored, I wish we’d get in an\u2028emergency. I love to take care of an emergency”. I told her I would really rather be bored.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
[First two sentences deleted: \u201cMy life was what I would call a big bore. My father was a minister and a counselor and my mother a busy-body housewife.\u201d] From childhood up to junior\u2028high school, I was what I would call “protected” although my parents were\u2028liberals and open to the rights of all, despite their race creed, or color,\u2028whether prisoners, homosexuals or mentally ill. It took me until the eighth\u2028grade to start really realizing what the world was all about. This was when\u2028I began to really think and notice how unhappy much of the world was. I\u2028began to question the actions of those adults that I had looked up to. There\u2028were different people I knew who had committed suicide and others who were\u2028killed in car accidents. I knew there was a war going on in Vietnam and\u2028I was involved in war protests and fights with the “cowboys” at school over this. By the ninth grade, I was totally confused, lonely, bored, and I began experimenting with drugs, although my parents never knew about it. I lacked self-confidence so much, and had such a poor self-image that I thought about different\u2028ways to commit suicide. I put on an act through most of high school pretending\u2028I was crazy, doing outrageous things like making faces at teachers and following different people I disliked acting like a chimpanzee. I did anything to\u2028cut the boredom and the only way I could handle it was by making a joke out\u2028of life.<\/p>\n
At age 16, I worked in a burn unit at Children’s Hospital in Washington,\u2028D.C. for the summer. The children needed someone to play with since their\u2028parents worked or didn’t care to come and visit them. \u2019There was so much pain\u2028in their faces from the hell they went through! One 12 yr old, Tyrone, had gasoline poured on him and a match lit to him on July 4th. His arms and hands were\u2028burnt \u2013 a human firework \u2013 and the medicine that was applied caused most children to scream with pain for hours at a time. Tyrone never screamed though and\u2028for all the pain and rejection he had gone through in life, he had a sweet\u2028disposition. After working there I was never the same. I returned to high school\u2028the next year. More than anything, I wanted to do something with my life\u2028that would be helping people like Tyrone, but after mixing with the same bunch\u2028of friends \u2013 some of whom were shooting heroin, and others who were involved\u2028in various crimes \u2013 I selfishly planned to commit suicide at some time. I had\u2028no one to whom I could express what I really felt about anything to and I was upset that\u2028the boys at school who liked me were always the creepiest creeps you could find.<\/p>\n
Finishing my high school years in a university town, I had grown to hate\u2028”intellectuals\u201d because they were all a lot of hot air and no action. This is\u2028why. Whenever I was on a project to care for prisoners’ children while the\u2028wives visited their husbands, or when I was tutoring minority children in\u2028their school work, the “intellectuals” could always find a reason why they\u2028could not help. But they always had plenty of time to talk about the world’s problems and sermonize about what should be done.<\/p>\n
So, due to my eccentric hate for intellectuals and school, I refused to go\u2028on to college. My mother wanted me to be an artist or musician but I hated them\u2028too. I thought they were all so phoney and egotistical. So I had no plans,\u2028was totally confused, and poured an entire bottle of codeine pills in my mouth\u2028preparing to swallow then. I don’t know why I stopped but I did \u2013 and spit them\u2028all out into the toilet. Days later, my sister who was in Peoples Temple invited\u2028me to visit. I found people who were friendly, mixing all races together,\u2028working in a cooperative setting. The people were not phoney and seemed\u2028for real. They took no drugs and still seemed to enjoy themselves. So,\u2028not having anything else to do with myself, I came. Jim told me that I could be\u2028helpful in the group, that I was talented and could teach others or even go to\u2028school and make something of myself. He convinced me it was not right to\u2028commit suicide and that I could be useful and gain happiness by helping others.\u2028It was he and the support of Temple members that helped me though nurses’ training, which I had adamantly refused to attempt at first. I found that even though\u2028I hated intellectuals and didn’t like the schools I’d been to, I had nothing\u2028against learning.<\/p>\n
Now I\u2019ve been an R.N. for three years and my life is fulfilling. I know\u2028that I am helping others. The hospital burn unit in which I worked before coming to Guyana taught me a lot. Our entire shift of nurses, I thought, must\u2028have been inherently evil. They refused to give pain shots to people, many\u2028of whom had their entire bodies burned, stating “You should be able to take the\u2028pain,\u201d They ripped off dressing quickly and bragged about how they could\u2028finish everyone’s dressings within an hour, when with some patients they should\u2028have taken an hour each.<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
FF-2-98B<\/p>\n
With all their extra time, they sat in the nurses lounge, turned off the buzzers,\u2028watched T.V. and drank beer and wine. [Deleted sentence: \u201cThis is no exaggeration.\u201d] When patients\u2028whose hands had been burned and were wrapped up requested the nurses help them to eat,\u2028the nurses responded, “I’m sick of you \u2013 feed yourself” So many a plate would be\u2028returned to the kitchen untouched, or into the nurses lounge for the nurses to\u2028eat. The calories that were so badly needed for wound healing most often\u2028went to the nurses’ bellies. The two nurses I worked with at night were nice\u2028and we prided ourselves in treating patients’ caringly. The patients often told\u2028us that they were relieved when 11 p.m. came and they could see us. [Deleted sentence: \u201cWith\u2028all the humiliation the patients were put through (some of which brought out\u2028my fighting instinct from previous experiences). I refrained from killing some nurses on the other shift.\u201d] The only thing that kept me from killing some of these monstrous nurses was that\u2028I knew it was right to be non-violent just as Jim had taught me. I was finally O.K. to some degree with this one bunch of sadist nurses after pulling a butcher knife jokingly at the one nurse who kept coming late to work and leaving me with the entire floor of patients by myself. They still did not like\u2028me because I was kind to patients, took time with them and tried to be sensitive to their needs. A group of us tried to change these nurses but it was\u2028almost impossible. Their activities were reported and they just lied about\u2028giving pain shots and treatments. The hospital, being a civil service institution, found it difficult to fire anyone \u2013 especially, nurses who were desperately needed in this particular unit. It seemed ironic to me that the most\u2028callous, cold, and sadistic people, with few exceptions, worked in a place which\u2028needed caring people so badly to deal with the mental and physical pain of\u2028being burned.<\/p>\n
The medical treatment people receive in Jonestown is totally different from what they were forced to endure in hospitals like the one I worked in. One man, Earl, had had terrible pain for years from a large growth on his back. It was the size of an apricot. Our doctor here removed the growth surgically \u2013 something that no US doctor had even suggested. Another child, Rondell, had cut his lip severely from inside to out. Most any Black child in the US would’ve had to sit for 2 to X amount of hours waiting for treatment in a public hospital and they would receive a lousy stitch job that most doctors would give in their usual hurried fashion. Here, Dr. Schacht spent two hours carefully calculating each stitch so as to put the lip back together exactly<\/u>. The lip was not a life and death situation but would have left a terrible scar on the face and develop a keloid (an enlarged bulging where the scar is) if it had been done sloppily or in a hurry like most “on call” doctors do in a public hospital.<\/p>\n
Just the lip being sewn up properly was not the entire point. Preventing the scaring prevented Rondell from going through the ridicule and pain anyone goes through (especially children when they have a physical deformity). Fortunately here in Jonestown, any type of ridicule of a person’s physical abnormalities is not tolerated.<\/p>\n
Here in Jonestown I can treat patients kindly without being sneered at or made fun of. My experience in US hospitals seems so backwards. It is illogical to me that someone would scorn compassion shown to the ill, yet many medical people are just this way. I always felt that I had to get back at the mean medical people that I worked with. [Balance of paragraph marked with notation, \u201cleave out\u201d] One homosexual ‘queen’ who was Black was the talk of all the nurses. His hands and nose were burned. He told me I was one of the two others who were nice to him. The entire nursing staff except for us three were nasty to him. They didn’t like Blacks and they didn’t like gays. He told me he was mad at them for treating him meanly, and that they would be sorry because he was going to do voodoo on them\u2026 So, the next day when all the smart cracks about faggots came from the bitches (one of whom was obviously a closet lesbian), I told them in a mysterious tone that they should cool it with Ben, that he was going to do voodoo on all of them. I thought it was funny because I don’t believe in voodoo, but it shut the nurses up. I don’t know that they treated him any better but they quit the cracks in front of me.<\/p>\n
[Notation on paragraph: \u201cOut\u201d] Medical people take care of the sick but are sometimes grossly sick themselves. One nurse who worked with me rarely, told me while washing and pulling the dead skin off a newly burned patient not to worry, I would get used to the screaming and that it always bothers people at first. She was too rough and caused the patient much extra pain. She wasn’t bothered but I was. The screams always bothered me so I tried to be most careful while performing a painful procedure. This one nurse always said with a sick smile, “I’m so bored, I wish we’d get love to take care of an emergency.” I told, her I would really rather be bored and was contented to sit and read or draw comic strip pictures to cheer up<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
FF-2-98C<\/p>\n
the patients.<\/p>\n
Nursing here in our Jonestown cooperative is much different from nursing in US hospitals. If there is a problem of any kind it is brought up for discussion. No one could get away with all the hell they did there, but no one attempts it either. The medical staff is excellent; a caring group of people determined to give the best care to those who need it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FF-2-98A ANNIE MOORE b. 1954 Oakland, California This one nurse who always worked in the burn unit said with a sick smile, “I’m so bored, I wish we’d get in an\u2028emergency. I love to take care of an emergency”. I told her I would really rather be bored. [First two sentences deleted: \u201cMy life was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":18647,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-138350","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/138350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/138350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138351,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/138350\/revisions\/138351"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}