I joined the team of professors who are involved in the training of nurses in the Nursing Specialization Program (PSSI) in 2017. The first years, 5 hours were devoted to communication, adherence and understanding. psychosocial burden of people living with HIV/AIDS. No matter when my class was scheduled, I found myself frustrated by how little I was able to cover in such a short time. We decided with Ms. Thomas, the director, to double the time dedicated to the course. Ten (10) hours with the nurses allows time for simulations, role-playing. These scenarios cover cases where the patients are women, children and same-sex couple situations.
My decision to return to studies after 15 years of practice as a clinical psychologist is partly linked to the observation I made in several work spaces in Haiti: patients or clients in medical contexts are often poorly received or even blamed by the people who receive them. This is not specific to Haiti: demeaning interactions between patients and providers are inherent to the unequal relationships that actually exist. In the context of working with people living with HIV/AIDS, there is added stigma associated with the disease and the negative view of people who are not heterosexual or who have sexual relations with people of the same sex. Nurses are not exempt from the prejudices that circulate in society and the 10 hours spent talking about these subjects are not enough to make them move. While brainstorming with my nursing colleague, I thought about developing visual educational materials that would be accessible on students’ phones. Short videos of 3 to 6 minutes where non-heterosexual Haitian people talk about their experiences, their lives, the challenges and also the joys of everyday life. This exposure to the material in private allows for unlimited rehearsals and eliminates the group’s gaze. From her phone, a student can watch, react and answer questions associated with the content offered without shame. This was the initial project for this certificate.
Between 2018 and 2020, I traveled to Haiti from New York to teach the course on communication and adherence. The Covid pandemic prevented me from continuing to make these trips and being in a room with the students in person. The team in Haiti found alternatives and some courses, including mine, were taught online. The cohort nurses were meeting at the GHESKIO Centers while I was online on a big screen. At the same time, security, economic, and political conditions have deteriorated. The assassination of the President of the Republic, Jovenel Moïse on the night of July 6 to 7, 2021, seems to have been only one step in this descent into hell. During the summer of 2022, I had to adapt my interventions to the reality that presented itself. Even being on the other side of the screen, the fear and anxiety were palpable among the students: colleagues had been kidnapped, the streets were not safe, and they should not stay late downtown. The communication course became a support group where anxieties could find a place to escape. I ended the sessions with relaxation or meditation exercises that they could reproduce at home.
I could no longer conduct interviews in Haiti and develop material from video interviews with queer people. However, technical skills in recording and processing videos remained a goal to maintain for this certification. I took advantage of Ms. Thomas’ brief visit to New York in April 2023 to interview of approximately half an hour. The videos on this site are the final products resulting from this interview. The conversation allowed us to:
- See the professional career of Ms. Thomas,
- The definition of the role of the nurse,
- The steps in implementing a nursing care plan
- The work of nurses in Haiti and the specificities in relation to the LGBTQ+ population
- What should be done to counter the stigma against queer people.
These videos can be used as educational tools in the training of nurses.
The continued and accelerated deterioration of the security situation in Haiti affects my work as a doctoral student. It also affects me emotionally since family, friends, colleagues are directly affected. Making this site public is a small victory in the face of the scale of devastation in Haiti in 2023.
