Catherine Groke writes:
As a third year Mental Health Nursing student we were
offered the opportunity for a small group of us to attend The Future of MentalHealth Nursing conference held in London at the O2. The objective was to bring together mental
health nursing students from all over England and to inspire and motivate us.
We would get to meet fellow student nurses, like minded wide eyed students who
are full of ideas and brimming with
potential on how to change things for the better and who want to put patient
care first and create a better future for mental health services.
After eagerly booking my train tickets I looked forward to
the adventure of travelling down to London.
Although it was a rather early bleary eyed 5 am start, as I sat on my
train large coffee in hand surrounded by business men and women in suits I felt
alive and very excited for the day ahead. After navigating the London
underground I arrived at the 02. Almost 500 of us gathered at
our conference tables with our conference lanyards around our necks, Programme
guides and 'goodie bags' in hand eagerly awaiting a full day of guest speakers.
We were not disappointed. The
conference began with introductions about the day ahead before the comedienne
Jo Brand came onto the stage to talk about her previous career as a mental
health nurse and about her training in the late seventies/ early eighties. She
was interviewed by Dr Edana Minghella a lady who she trained and worked with
and provided us with amusing anecdotes and tales of her life and experience as
a nurse. It was both entertaining and informative as she told us how she used
to work in the crisis centres of South London during the times of the Brixton
riots.
Following Jo we were
introduced to Justyn Rees Larcombe a former army officer who had never gambled
a day in his life until he was almost 40 years old. He used a free bet and
then from that point he was hooked. He gave a heart wrenching account of how his
addiction and deceit caused him to loose everything, his job wife and family.
He had attempted to seek help but felt he was not really understood until the
love and support of his mother helped him to turn around and realise he had hit
rock bottom. He has now transformed his
life and now helps others. Leading on
from this tale of gambling addiction we were taken on the emotional
rollercoaster of listening to Tommy Whitelaw. He lost his mother to dementia
and it is his life’s mission to raise awareness of dementia and to keep his
mother’s memory alive. He gave a heart
breaking account of the devastation dementia causes in families and told us how
truly lost and isolated he felt in looking after his mother who slowly but
surely lost a piece of herself at a time which could never be returned. There
was not a dry eye in the house as he described his pain and experience of being
a doting and caring son looking after his mother and the feelings of
desperation he must have felt. He
encouraged us to sign his pledge and name what we promise to do now as future
nurses caring for someone with dementia.
After a small spot of lunch and networking opportunity the
rest of the day provided more speakers from a variety of backgrounds who talked
about research in mental health, the role of social media, the importance of
networking and the role of the modern mental health nurse in a world where
there is an increasing amount of drug and alcohol misuse. After a very long day
we finished in the 02 VIP lounge where we enjoyed a complementary drink or two
and mixed with other student nurses. Overall this was a fantastic opportunity,
I left London that night feeling exhausted but inspired and motivated to be the
best nurse that I can be.
No comments:
Post a Comment