Lindener Wenda Hutson numbers among the good Samaritans who have responded to the plight of the sick and needy in her community and has taken the initiative, along with others, to have a psychiatric unit established in the mining town.
Hutson, who holds a BSN and is a registered nurse, has lived in the USA for more than 30 years. A member of the Linden Fund USA, she returns home at this time of the year to celebrate the Town Week activities and join her colleagues to execute a series of sessions with nurses and other health care and security professionals to establish a psychiatric unit at the Linden Hospital Complex.
The initiative has its genesis in the Town Week festivities and had occurred when Hutson was a part of a team of medical professionals who provided a wide range of medical services to residents. Hutson and the team then became aware of the existing programme of having to transfer patients from Linden to the unit in Georgetown and determined ways it could be improved. “We will be working to open a psyche unit here in Linden and we are hoping to train nurses, nurses’ aide and security to introduce them to psychiatry and we hope that it would be a continuous programme that would eventually bring them up to the level where they are able to run the unit effectively,” she said.
According to Hutson it is painful to see the number of persons walking the streets aimlessly, afflicted by psychiatric problems. Having worked in the field for a number of years, she said she is confident that most of these people can be helped. She also noted that there are several shut-ins that are in need of help in this regard but cannot access it because of either limited resources, fear of scorn, economic resources or just the willpower to get out of the home to the place of help. “We want to stir a change for these persons and I know that it can be done,” she said.
Though she has been coming home for years during her vacation period, Hutson said it was five years ago that she was able to find a channel through which to give back to the town, using the skills she has learnt. She linked-up with the Linden Fund and at first started assisting in the donation of medical and other supplies to the LHC and other institutions and organizations in the community. Cognizant of the fact that things have changed in the mining town over the years she said, “For as long as there is breath in my body I endeavour to do whatever bit I can to help my home town.”
Hutson recalled fondly a time when the community fathered and mothered the children; when individual residents made it their responsibility to keep the front of their yards clean; when the market place was so clean that “you coulda almost eat off the road”; when Lindeners were the high flyers in the education system and when the bauxite industry thrived. “It may not all come back like that but things can be better than [they are] right now for Linden. I will play my part. I will ensure that my family [does the same] and I will encourage the people around me to do their bit and with that I am confident that someday soon we will see a brighter and more prosperous Linden,” she said.
