Athaliah Reynolds, Staff Reporter
After losing her mother to cervical cancer at eight-years-old, Sharon Brown-Brotherton said she went into the field of nursing in search of answers. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
AT THE age of eight years old, Sharon Brown-Brother-ton lost her mother to cervical cancer - an experience that has shaped the course of her life and continues to guide her actions to this day.
"It was something I couldn't understand," she said. "She was quite young, just 31 years old, and I wanted answers to her death. I wanted to know why she had to die and if I could have saved her life."
The 39-year-old nurse educator is seated behind a heavily-stacked desk, packed with books and test papers, in her office at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH).
She told The Gleaner that after her mother's death she was sent to live with her grandaunt in Central Village, Spanish Town. A woman she described as "accommodating and loving, but very strict".
However, Mrs. Brown-Brotherton was forced to embrace the cold and heartless reality of death for a second time when her grandaunt passed away, just two years later, from a subarachnoid haemorrhage, a condition commonly associated with hypertension.
Questions to be answered
So, before her 12th birthday, she was faced with the death of two close family members.
"This again raised a lot of questions," she said. "I was just 10 years old when my grandaunt died, and I couldn't understand why all the people I love had to leave."
She was somewhat sheltered from the harshness of watching her mother die by her 18-year-old aunt, Monica, who soon became a second mother to her.
But Mrs. Brown-Brotherton still had questions to which she desperately needed answers - questions that continued to haunt her throughout her tenure at the Camperdown High School in Kingston.
"I went into the field of nursing in search of answers," she explained. "After leaving high school, I wasn't totally sure what I wanted to do, but I knew it had to be in the medical field."
She entered the Kingston School of Nursing straight out of high school in October 1987 and has not looked back since.
Since her graduation in 1990, she has gone on to receive several awards and distinctions in her field as a critical care nurse at the KPH, a position she held for 11 years. She now serves as the senior tutor for KPH's Critical Care Training Programme (CCTP).
Mrs. Brown-Brotherton has been a member of the Nurse's Association of Jamaica (NAJ) for the past 18 years, serving in various capacities, except as president and treasurer. She is also affiliated with the NAJ's negotiating team, a group that lobbies on behalf of the island's nurses for better salaries and fringe benefits.
She holds a bachelor of science and master's degree in nursing education and human resource development from the University of the West Indies (UWI), and is currently on a two-year leave of absence from the UWI where she hopes to resume her PhD studies in organisational behaviour.
Accomplishments
She was the 1998 recipient of the Tastee's Scholarship for Nursing; in 2001, she copped the National Nurse of the Year award.
She also received the President's Award in 2001 for her active and committed service to the NAJ and, in 2003, was rewarded for out-standing service to the organisation.
In 2007, she received the Distinguished Award for Training and Education and was also the first runner-up in the Blue Cross Wellness Award. Also listed among her proudest accomplishments is her recent commissioning as a lieutenant in the medical arm of the Jamaica Combined Cadet Force.
As for her initial reason for becoming a nurse - a child's search for answers to a mother stolen away too soon by the deadly grasp of cancer - Mrs. Brown-Brotherton said: "I now have all my answers. I now understand how and why my mother died. But having gotten those answers, I think if certain things were available the way they should have been, my mother would still be alive," she said.
But the nurse-educator said since she does not possess the power to change what happened, she has used her knowledge to help others - to improve someone else's life and hopefully save someone else's mother.
"And that's what I'm committed to do for as long as I'm in nursing," she stated.
She admitted that she will continue to work towards improving the health and lives of every Jamaican, despite the challenges that still exist for many nurses in the island. The veteran nurse believes that one of the biggest difficulties faced by nurses at the KPH and other hospitals across the country is the way in which they are sometimes treated.
"Not only by some of the patients, but by corporate Jamaica. I think they need to recognise KPH's worth and the work that is done behind these walls," she said. "It is hard work - very, very hard work - because you find you often have to extend yourself beyond the call of duty."
Challenges
According to Mrs. Brown-Brotherton, a 16-hour work shift has become the norm for most nurses because of a shortage of hands in the profession - an issue she has raised on many occasions in her negotiations on behalf of her fellow nurses.
"I dream of a day when nurses will be given the adequate resources to perform their tasks, and where they will be able to work a normal eight-hour shift and see what they are working for financially," she said.
The accomplished nurse said on many occasions nurses at KPH are forced to improvise because of a serious shortage in the necessary tools and equipment provided at the hospital.
However, despite these challenges, the nursing practitioner of almost 18 years has found joy and fulfilment in her field.
Great rewards
Sharon Brown-Brotherton (right), 2001 Nurse of the Year, with Carmen Johnson, (centre), Nurse of the Year for 2004, and Shirley Hibbert, 2003 Nurse of the Year, at the International Nurses Day function held on May 12, 2005 at the Hilton Hotel, New Kingston. - File
Mrs. Brown-Brotherton's face relaxed into a smile when she was asked to recall some of her most cherished moments while working at KPH. She told the story of a night back in 1994 when she was faced with caring for a dying policeman who was shot while on duty.
"He was the first patient to open the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) that year," she recalled. "When I came on duty, I examined the officer, observed his blood pressure and realised what was happening - he was basically unresponsive."
The 39-year-old stalwart said she was alone on the ward with just a ward assistant but never faltered.
"I called the ward assistant and both of us stood there over him and we squeezed blood and plasma into him that night. I kept saying to him 'You not dying on me in here you know, you not dying on me in here tonight!' And in the morning, he opened his eyes. I must say I'm happy when I see him on the street and he never passes me without calling to me."
Mrs. Brown-Brotherton admitted that one of the greatest rewards of the job is when a patient comes back to say hello or thank you: "It makes you feel like your work was appreciated." She is definitely a 'woman in charge' not just in her career, but also as a mother of two.
"My children inspire me everyday and I am happy I can be an inspiration to them also. "Each time I take home an award, my daughter says, 'mom I have to add one to the collection as well,' she said with a grin.
But her work as a health-care professional is not over and Mrs. Brown-Brotherton said there is much more to be done.
"I hope that pretty soon there will be an oncology programme here at the KPH," she said.
Since her mother's death over 30 years ago, there have been many improvements in the treatment and public awareness of the deadly disease.
She admitted, however, that much more can be done as cervical cancer is still a massive killer of women in Jamaica and across the Caribbean.
athaliah.reynolds@gleanerjm.com
