Community-Based Nursing: Analysis and Application

Essay and Presentation

Rachel A. Long

South Dakota State University


Long 1

Sometimes We Should Just Cry by Barb Mannenbach


"Sometimes I wonder if, when we want some action on behalf of the children we visit, we should just cry." "Sometimes We Should Just Cry" is a story about a public health nurse who is asked to go with the police to see a family she had previously visited. They were investigating a report that the children were not being cared for properly. When they arrived at the home, the heat was unbearable and the stench of the house made them nauseated. There were eight children from two different families in the home along with five adults. All of the children were covered with scabies, and the baby was skin and bones. "The baby looked like he was from some famine-struck third world country." After the police saw the nurse cry at this terrible site, they removed the children from the home. They took the children and bathed them and checked them for lice. The children were eventually adopted into good homes. At the end of that day, the nurse was driving home and got a speeding ticket. "I was so upset, I must have been going too fast, thinking about the day." She found out a year later at the children's hearing, that if she had explained the situation to the officer, she probably wouldn't have gotten a ticket at all.

The nurse in this story intervened by going along with the police and the Children's Services Division. She was an educated woman who acted as the children's advocate and also the educator by knowing what to look for in the home. The police had later told her that they aren't sure what to look for when they have to decide...