Erin, Nursing Unit Manager: I’m just from the hospital, I just wanted to make sure you’re alright. I hope you feel better, I’m really sorry. Alright.
My name is Erin and I am the Nursing Unit Manager of the Homeless Outreach Team at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney. The homeless outreach team is a team of clinical and non-clinical staff that provide health outreach to people sleeping rough in the inner-city.
So when you went into hospital did you go into emergency or did you go the ward?
Rough Sleeper: I went into emergency, then they put me in the ward, and they done a blood test.
Erin, Nursing Unit Manager: These are people who have been failed by so many systems and people throughout their life and often have no trust and so building up people’s trust is really key.
So where are we going to go to next John? Woolly.
So John is a peer support worker, that works with the homeless health service, and he’s been employed because of his lived experience of homelessness, and his job is to connect with people through that shared experience and then through that, help their engagement with healthcare.
John, peer support worker: Sorry to disturb you mate, how are you going?
I know what it’s like to be out here. When I sit down and I say you know I was homeless almost seven years, it opens a door. One of my clients, a couple weeks ago now, he’s in rehab, John he says, you made me realise that I had a life worth saving.
Erin, Nursing Unit Manager: Congested. Nasal congestion?
Had a bit of a sore throat.
So this morning, we went into the park, found a gentleman who was sleeping rough, and he said to us that he had had some respiratory systems.
Okay, can you just take some nice slow breaths?
So I did a bit of a check of him.
Temperature’s good, 36.8.
Mate look, if you feel like you’re starting to get feverish and you need to go to ED, I’ll give you a mask, you can just pop the mask on if you’re going to go to emergency okay?
Please treat yourself like you’re number one right now, because, you know, you’re sleeping out and sleeping out can just mean that you’re a bit more susceptible to getting things.
I think too, what we do is a lot about hope and how incredible the small wins are, because often you do sometimes get bogged down in the negative.
That’s when you need to be going, actually this person, they showed up to see me, and that’s huge, that’s such a big step from them because they actually trust me.
I feel very privileged to work in this service. I am proud to nurse my clients, I am proud to be out there working with people on the coal face, sitting down next to people on the cold ground where they sleep.
I am proud that I get to have that experience that very few people get to have, and I think that’s unique.