San Diego Black Nurses Association
Commitment to community
By Alicia Hugg, RN, MA
May 9, 2005
As president of the San Diego Black Nurses Association (SDBNA), Syvera Hardy, RN, is committed to fitting the objectives of the National Black Nurses Association (NBNA) to the needs of her community. While the primary focus of NBNA is on resolving health care disparities between the country’s minority and white populations, the San Diego BNA embraces the objective of mentoring and recruiting African Americans into the nursing profession. Along with fulfilling the needs of a profession experiencing a nation- and statewide shortage, Hardy has another reason to encourage black students to join the group: “We want student nurses to not forget the importance of their heritage.”
Hardy, a past SDBNA treasurer, was recently elected to a second term as president. The San Diego chapter is one of 80 chapters of the NBNA, a group formed during the 1971 American Nurses Association convention to address the health care needs of African Americans. African-American delegates conceived of the idea when they met to explore inequities in health care provision for African-American and other underserved patients across the United States. From this meeting, the NBNA grew into an organization of national prominence and has extended its reach with new chapters in Africa and the Caribbean.
The San Diego chapter has 65 members, including 49 RNs, both active and retired, eight LVNs, and eight student nurses. Lottie Harris, Eula May Banks, Maudesta George, Jewel Kelly, Dorothy Palmer Phillips, and Betty Reliford founded the chapter in 1976. Harris became the first president of SDBNA. The group decided there was a need in San Diego to recognize African-American nurses and concluded that community involvement would meet that need. Hardy cited several examples of community outreach, including the recruitment of potential nursing students at high school career fairs, speaking at local churches, marching in the annual Martin Luther King Day parade, and assisting with prostate screenings at the Scripps Stevens Cancer Center.
The group supports the goals of Healthy People 2010, a statement of national health objectives designed to identify the most significant preventable threats to health and establish national goals to reduce these threats. The SDBNA website, (www.sdbna.org/message.htm), features a President’s Message by Hardy, who comments: “Health Disparities — Prevention and Wellness in the 21st Century, is our theme and focus for community programs this year …” SDBNA promotes the objectives by providing community programs on diabetes, breast and prostate cancer, heart disease, stroke, immunizations, and hypertension.
While the group provides outreach to the community at large, recruiting and mentoring student nurses is its primary mission and the one closest to Hardy’s heart. SDBNA sponsors an annual luncheon to fund scholarships for student nurses enrolled in an accredited school of nursing, Hardy’s favorite event.
“The big thing for us is mentoring nurses and giving scholarships. And while there is a lot of work involved in planning and getting the luncheon together, it is all worth it in the end,” she says. For the past 28 years, SDBNA has kept its commitment to its primary objective by awarding annual scholarships, recruiting African Americans into nursing, and sustaining them through nursing programs.
Nursing students also constitute a portion of the SDBNA board and provide student-to-student or peer recruiting. To further encourage student participation, the association encourages student nurse attendance at its national conferences. According to Hardy, this year the group will sponsor two students to the NBNA national conference. Other recruiting and educational efforts include sending SDBNA informational flyers and brochures to elementary and junior high schools, colleges, and universities. Members will often visit schools and encourage students to consider nursing as a career. “This helps to make our presence known. We also send scholarship applications to colleges and schools to further our recruiting efforts,” Hardy says.
The group relies on community support for its projects and has formed partnerships with several organizations. For example, the group co-sponsored a tea for potential nurses with Paradise Valley Hospital, located in nearby National City. Additional donations have come from Kaiser Permanente and the Care View Medical Group to fund souvenir booklets for the annual fund-raising luncheon. The association has also formed collaborations with the Diabetes Initiative, Fourth District Senior Citizens, California Black Health Network, the Encanto Street Fair, which is held in a predominantly African-American section of town, the San Diego Black Health Associates, and the San Diego Mental Health Association, among others.
“We are continuing to broaden our efforts to collaborate with other professional organizations to provide quality health care, increase cultural awareness and sensitivity in the delivery of health care, especially to African Americans, and access to affordable comprehensive health care through combined and coordinated strategies,” says Hardy.
Alicia Hugg, RN, MA is a freelance writer for NurseWeek.