麻豆传媒AV

Shirley Bedford has always aspired to ascend, not to the science, but to the art of nursing.

The past president of the Registered Psychiatric Nurses Association of Saskatchewan is inspired to live her professional life according to a quote by an American nurse practitioner, Karen Bugaj. In part, it reads: to practice the science of nursing, requires a nurse who can perform a thorough and accurate physical assessment by inspecting, palpating, percussing and auscaltating the patient's body. The ascent to the art of nursing, requires a nurse willing to perform a thorough and accurate assessment of the person, via inspection of the character, palpation of the mind, percussion of the heart an auscultation of the soul.

"I think this quote really speaks to psychiatric nursing being focused on the essence of humanity," says Bedford, who graduated from training at the Saskatchewan Hospital in North Battleford as a psychiatric nurse in 1972.

At last year's Champions of Mental Health Awards held in North Battleford, Bedford, who in fact helped establish the awards as a way to recognize people in the community who are supportive of the mentally ill, was given a special award. Presenting the award, which was a surprise to Bedford, executive director of RPNAS Bob Allen described Bedford as a person who has touched and continues to touch the lives of many people. Her life, he said, has been spent in the service of others, giving selflessly to others and going above and beyond.

"I first met her in 1969 or so when we were students at Saskatchewan Hospital. She graduated and became an RPN in 1972. She continued to advance her education in hospital administration and has been a continual champion of professional development, serving wherever the work needed to be done."

He said she has been continually involved on a volunteer basis with the RPNAS in many capacities locally, provincially and nationally.

"Our archives are full of her work on committees and it is impossible to list all of her contributions," said Allen.

She faces life with a tremendous sense of humour is always ready to help others face life's difficulties and challenges, he said.

"She is the consummate professional and exemplifies those qualities we admire in others. In a profession that is quite misunderstood by most, she intuitively knows what we are there for."

Indeed, Bedford says in a YouTube video posted by the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses as part of the "Making the Difference" initiative, "I'm the road map and if you start to move through some of these directions, you will reach your destination."

While she is well known and sometimes outspoken, she is not one to blow her own horn. The horn she prefers to blow is that of the psychiatric nursing profession.

From a paper prepared by Horatio, the European psychiatric nurses' organization, she picks out a particular paragraph stating what her colleagues do: "Apply a wide range of medical, psychological and psychosocial interventions, adapted to suit the functions of the nursing therapeutic relationship and the individual requirements of each patient."

It's the ability of psychiatric nurses to draw on a variety of skills to fulfill their roles, which are varied, that Bedford points to as underlining their value.

"We still struggle with health authority perception that we can't do what regular nurses do, which is certainly not true," says Bedford. "Our younger nurses are being educated in all the physical nursing that we need … we have to find out [our patients'] physical history, everything that could interact, and work with all those aspects and with mental health as well."

For example, said Bedford, they have to understand medications, and what might be contra-indicated if their clients are using medication for other conditions. There might also be times when what might appear to be a mental illness is actually the result of an acute illness, and a psych nurse's training can help with that assessment.

"We have to have that knowledge," she says. "We have the knowledge and skill base, it's just where we choose to do use the skill base."

As for Saskatchewan's Patient First Review that recommended the health system make patient- and family-centred care the foundation and principle aim of health care, Bedford says that's always been part of the psychiatric nursing philosophy.

"It's not new for us."

Bedford hit her retirement formula a number of years ago, but continues to work, as many nurses do after retirement. She works two days a week in the Heartland Health Region, commuting from North Battleford to Unity. Heartland, she says, covers a huge geographical area, with the equivalent of six and a half psychiatric nurses to do the community work. That translates to 12,000 people per person.

"We are really wide spread so we really have to make an extra effort for support and communication," says Bedford. Fortunately, she adds, "our community services head Marlene Weston is very supportive of her community workers."

Bedford also works casual at the Mental Health Centre in the Battlefords, her pre-retirement place of work. Sometimes, depending on the need for casual shifts, she is as busy as before her so-called retirement.

She intends to keep working as long as she is healthy.

As a psych nurse, Bedford reaches out to help others. But working with other psych nurses has also helped her through a difficult time. When her husband Eldon passed away with cancer just under three years ago, her colleagues were there for her, she says.

"For me, being able to stay at work helped me survive Eldon's death," she says. "It helped me get through that."

Eldon was a supportive husband who, after their daughter had been born and when his wife was about 27, encouraged Bedford to follow her dream of becoming a nurse. They were living in North Battleford, having been transferred here from Saskatoon because of Eldon's job with the provincial highways department. Information she saw in the newspaper prompted her to follow a dream she had always cherished, and she began training at the Saskatchewan Hospital.

Bedford doesn't remember a time when she didn't want to be a nurse.

"I played nurse with my dolls when I was a little, little girl and I don't remember even having access to nurses," she says. "I'd put a pin in lipstick to sterilize it and inject the doll. I had a doll with red dots all over its butt," she laughs.

Originally, she had hoped to take nursing at Medicine Hat General Hospital, but because she graduated high school at 16 she was too young to be admitted to the program.

"They wouldn't even look at me until I was 18, she says, so she worked at other jobs until the Saskatchewan Hospital opportunity opened up.

"Eldon was supportive whatever I wanted to do," she said. "I took the training at Saskatchewan Hospital, and from there on there was no looking back."

She liked the physical part of nursing, but it was the community work aspect that really inspired her.

"Some people aren't built for it," she says, but it resonated with her.

She recalls, "Two weeks before I started training, I got a phone call from a cousin in the States." She was shocked when he called because, "I knew he was single and had a drinking problem, but I hadn't seen him since I was six." After catching up a bit, he said he'd heard she was going be taking psychiatric nursing training. Then he said, "I hope that when you run into people like me you will have some compassion."

"Two weeks later he shot himself," says Bedford. "It was surreal."

None are immune, whether it's family, friends or co-workers, she says.

"Throughout the early part of my career," she adds, "Some of us ran into situations which would now be considered post traumatic stress disorder. We saw things and coped with things that were pretty horrendous, and every now and then you still get the reminder and you have to keep it compartmentalized or otherwise you couldn't function."

Bedford's passion for psychiatric nursing has led her to advocate for clients and fellow nurses by becoming active with the RPNAS. She was president of the association for two years, recently handing over the gavel to Marion Palidwor, a fellow psychiatric nurse from North Battleford. As an association, RPNAS confers the designation of registered psychiatric nurse, but it also has an advocacy role. It advocates for better mental health services for its members' clients and for its profession.

Bedford says her focus as president was to see a degree program for psychiatric nursing put in place. The Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology received authorization to grant a new Bachelor of Psychiatric Nursing in July of 2013. There has been a diploma course in place for most of the years since the position of psychiatric nurse was legislated into existence in 1948. Now, says Bedford, many diploma psychiatric nurses are taking the degree program.

The main difference between diploma and degree courses, in addition to length of the course, is in the administrative and leadership roles, says Bedford. It's the same basic education with more concentrated learning in terms of theory and practice, like a teachers degree might compare to a masters level, she explains. There isn't really a difference in pay unless someone gets an administrative job. Psychiatric nurses who are members of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses working in inpatient nursing units see little difference in money, Bedford says.

Going for the degree is more about the extra training and wider career opportunities which, if one moves into management or heading up programs can mean more money. She adds not all psychiatric nurses are covered by SUN. Some are members of the Health Sciences Association Saskatchewan or the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

As president of RPNAS she was pleased the degree program has finally been achieved and 30 seats have been allotted, although she notes 30 more were promised but have not yet materialized.

Another one of Bedford's goals as RPNAS president was to work toward the designation of psychiatric nurse practitioners.

"We were blown out of the water over the psychiatric nurse practitioner, which was really disappointing," says Bedford.

But she will continue to advocate, despite that particular setback.

"I tend to get assertive, and I would like to see this and like to see that," laughs Bedford. "It doesn't hurt to ask."

Bedford does have a reputation for pulling no punches when discussing mental health issues with politicians, including suggesting schools could have better early intervention if they had psychiatric nurses on staff. Or that mental health and addictions warrants having its own ministry.

Bedford's staunch work ethic and belief in education, she says, comes from her parents, who emigrated from Lithuania in the 1930s. She and her sister certainly learned to respect the freedom their parents sought, she says.

Her parents first came to Estevan, where her dad worked in the coal mines. Then he got on with the railroad, says Bedford. They lived in various small communities across southern Saskatchewan and Alberta.

She was born in Gull Lake. When she was 12, they moved to the Leader area, where her future husband's father was her teacher.

When, because she was "kind of a smart kid," she graduated too young to immediately embark on her dream of becoming a nurse, she worked in a drug store locally, then moved to Saskatoon with her husband where she worked for A.A. Murphy and Sons CFQC in Saskatoon.

Here in North Battleford, in addition to being known for her work, she is also known as a mother and grandmother of two, a devoted pet owner and dog rescuer. At times, she's even been known as a bellydancer.

And when being seen helping some neighbourhood kids catch their escaped pet rabbit in the back alley, prompting neighbours to exclaim, "Oh, Bedford, are you ever crazy!" she laughs, "Leave me alone, I enjoy every minute of it."