Cherokee day 4



Today was day 4 at Cherokee. We explored more aspects of the Cherokee hospital setting and further expanded our knowledge of this culture and its practices. One of these is bringing up children to retain their culture preferences and beliefs. As I stated in a previous blog this includes, basket weaving, dancing, pottery, making tools and weapons and the basic principles of their beliefs on creation along with their history. Yesterday we attended the Unto These Hills drama. This play represented the struggles between the explorers of America and the Cherokee people along with the United States government and how they wronged them. The Cherokee fought alongside Andrew Jackson and they felt like they had befriended him and could trust him. Many years down the road he forced them to leave their lands, which then led to the Trail of Tears.
The trail of tears (n.d.) In 1838 and 1839, as part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects. The migrants faced hunger, disease, and exhaustion on the forced march. Over 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokees died. (para. 1)

Today we met with Victoria Harland, who has a major role as one of the directors at Cherokee hospital. She informed us how the elders of the community along with the appointed tribal leaders and Chief are the most respected and have the most authority. These people are given this power through the majority vote of the tribes. She informed us that most of these members have at least a master’s degree and are very highly educated and distinguished in the community.
            From observing the patients that arrived at the hospital today I did notice a large amount of elder adults with young children under their care. Some would mention that they just attained custody of the baby or that they are becoming the guardian. One of the women mentioned that a particular child’s mother was in jail, which is why she was taking care of the baby. After talking with the nurse she went over that many of the parenting roles are passed from the parents to the grandparents due to the inability to care for the child appropriately. She said that it wasn’t uncommon for a family structure to include a grandmother and a child, a grandfather and a child or both grandparents together taking care of a child or multiple children.
            There are many support systems in Cherokee, like the EBCI Tribal TANF Program, which provides months cash assistance to family care, Tribal Child Support Services, Behavioral Health services for Cherokee Children, Adults and Families, Violence Against Women Act, Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Program and the Legal Assistance Office. I would say that the most beneficial and utilized would be the hospital and the clinics. Members of the tribe and employees all get free healthcare. This means that more patients are actually coming to the hospital when they need something and this makes the community seem like there is a higher prevalence for disease and addiction. Rather than the rest of the country where people tend to wait until the last second to go to the doctor, here in Cherokee these people show up not having to worry about a financial burden.
            I have seen one example of how the Cherokee can be resilient. Today in clinical I witnessed a grandmother who had just attained custody of her 1 year old granddaughter. When going over the admission assessment she admitted to using marijuana very frequently up until about 3 months ago. She stated that she stopped because she is now the caretaker of this child and wanted to make the responsible choice. She smoked the marijuana due to chronic pain and convinced herself that she wasn’t going to smoke because of the baby and will deal with the pain. From what I have seen is that the most resilient families come from a structured background. Usually these are the families where the children go to college and use the money they are given wisely. Overall we were given a lot of information today and I look forward to future experiences here at Cherokee.


The trail of tears. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1567.html


Comments

  1. Nursing Instructor LGJuly 18, 2017 at 9:15 PM

    Victoria Harlan is the Director of the Emergency Department at Cherokee Indian Hospital.

    ReplyDelete

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