Nurses Edna Scott Benders and Frank Banis, are the first ever Student Registered Nurses to have completed their Psychiatry Job Training on St. Maarten at the Mental Health Foundation.
Edna gave thumbs up for the MHF, she learned a lot about the psychiatric problems on St. Maarten through home visits, crisis management and from working on the inpatient ward and in the Faraja Center. Edna's nursing carrier started in the old St. Martin's home in Front Street and through locally organized nurse's aide course in St. Martin's Home, then the Nursing Assistant and Licensed Practical Nurses course at the St. Maarten Medical Center and is now participating in the Registered Nurses program at the education departments of SMMC.
Frank Banis also started his carrier in St. Martin's Home in Front Street right after he graduated from the Sundial School and followed the same steps and Edna.
Now that we are studying more about medicine we understand more about the necessary protocols and procedures in health care. Edna remembers the many changes that were introduced in St. Martin's Home when protocols and procedures were implemented. As aids we did all kinds of medical procedures without knowing what to observe and were suddenly no longer allowed to do them anymore we did not understand why. By studying nursing I'm learning how important knowledge of what you are doing is.
All nurses from the SMMC registered nurses program can now stay on St. Maarten and learn about psychiatry and the needs of the local people, before MHF existed students had to go to Curaçao for their psychiatry job training.
