A nurse from the era of mercy: Nina Bliznyuk.
What man does not want the world to be kinder and gentler to him? But not everyone is ready to show these qualities towards others: it is much easier to complain about the darkness than to light a candle. However, there are people for whom mercy is a calling, a meaning of life, and... ...a profession.
My interlocutress from Minsk Nina Bliznyuk has a legendary record: she has been working as a visiting nurse for over 50 years. In 2009 Nina Bliznyuk was one of the first in the CIS who recieved a prestigious international award - the Florence Nightingale medal. As a rule, the laureates are nurses who distinguished themselves on the battlefield (by the way, six nurses from Belarus - participants of the Great Patriotic War, including Hero of the Soviet Union Zinaida Tusnolobova-Marchenko, were awarded this medal). Nina Bliznyuk was honored for her selfless service to bedridden lonely people, disabled people of war and labor, blockade and concentration camp inmates, participants of the Chernobyl accident elimination. She was awarded the title "Honorary resident of Frunzenski district of Minsk," the honorary title "Minsker of the Year" in the field of social protection. Her photo is on the stands in many institutions and schools in the capital, a documentary film "Winter will pass" was made about her.
Nina is sincerely surprised that total strangers say hello to her: how come they recognize me on the street, in transport?! After all her face is special, it shines with such surprising nobility, wisdom, kindness, is a reflection of such internal harmony that one cannot help but remember it.
— The Red Cross on white background is associated with the purity of thoughts and the beauty of actions. However, there is another side to it that one does not think about until comes it across: Red Cross nurses have to bandage purulent wounds every day, treat bedsores and trophic ulcers, take care of bedridden patients, often take care of those who are only despised by others. Nina Nikolaevna, how is it possible to keep a bright soul, facing these things daily for many years?
—I have been working with the Red Cross since May 28, 1967. For many years, I had kept a record of my beneficiaries, and notebooks have long become shabby. I suppose I have provided services to 600 beneficiaries in total. Do I remember all of them? All of the most severe cases.
The specifics of our work is that if we start providing services to a person, then, as a rule, we do not leave them until the last day. If they have relatives, we contact them. If lonely people die, we ourselves can organize the funerals...
— What paths and roads have brought you to the Visiting Nurses Service of the Red Cross?
— It was as if my profession had been predetermined. My father was bedridden for three years after his injury in the collective farm (and he fought in the Great Patriotic War on the front line, reached Berlin with no single scratch). My mother died early, my sister suffered from a severe form of asthma. I had no other way but to engage in medicine, it seems that it is my destiny to help the sick –both my own relatives, and other people.
In 1965, I took a two-year course of the Red Cross in Minsk, and was assigned to policlinic 20 of Frunzenski district. I began to work as a visiting nurse (as we used to be called). At that time there were 50 Red Cross nurses in the capital, and now there are only seven (in 2015 - editor's note).
— Who were you first beneficiaries?
— At that time, visiting nurses provided services primarily to disabled war veterans, both lonely and those who had a family. Many of them needed our help. Now there are more lonely elderly and disabled people among the beneficiaries. We provide not only medical care, but also social care.
— Nina Nikolaevna, what do you call your beneficiaries?
— I call them beneficiaries. Not the sick... In so many years we not only have got used to each other - we have become related. Some of them I call by their name and middle name, and for some I use the affectionate diminutive. And they call me the same. Sometimes they call me Ninotchka. Among my beneficiaries, there are people around 100 years old; I could be their daughter, although I have been getting my retirement pension for almost 20 years.
— I know that visiting nurse take care of people who, according to the law, can not be taken on by social workers (we are talking about people with chronicle mental diseases, people with HIV, etc.). I heard that the camera operators who made the video about you, their nerves gave in...
—There have been drug addicts and HIV-positive people among my beneficiaries, and many other! However, mostly they are people who need bandages because of bedsores, trophic ulcers. The sick, the elderly, the lonely, the disabled since childhood... I'll tell you about one of my beneficiaries. They informed about him at the policlinic. It was dirty all around him, he was a bedridden man, no one took care of him. He was hungry, skin and bones, all in bedsores, back, legs, and buttocks were literally black. I had to cut through the necrotic tissues, clean these areas. I did everything myself, though it is very difficult to bandage a bedridden person alone. When I put this man into shape more or less, I called the volunteers, they wiped out the insects, brought a mattress, set up the bed. I went to the officials and asked for the first disability group for this man, now he gets a pension bigger than mine. The neighbor is surprised: they thought he would not survive a week, how did you manage to bring him back to life?! Sasha has a daughter, she is the owner of the apartment by inheritance. I think if you own the apartment, be kind to take care of the relatives who live in the apartment. Why should the state take care of this person or why should the visiting nurses do it? It is wrong...
— How do you manage to build relationships with so many different people? Do you know a magic word?
— You're kidding (smiling). First, one has to be very careful, everyone needs a different approach. Some beneficiaries are extremely distrustful, afraid of strangers. Others are very happy as soon as they hear that somebody from the Red Cross comes to visit them. It is not easy to build trust. Some thaw out faster, others slower, but they dearly wait for me... After vacation, I came to my beneficiary, a blind 98-year-old elderly woman, we hugged, and she cried: "My Ninotchka is here!"...
— Have there been any beneficiaries who refused your services or have you ever refused them? Have you had a desire to never again enter someone's apartment?
— I have a beneficiary with multiple sclerosis; he lives alone, he is a very nervous person. If I am 15 minutes late or early, I am in trouble - he screams, shaking so that the dentures fall out... And one day I was late (I had to wait for the shift worker, it was impossible to leave the elderly lady alone), so he switched off the intercom, I knocked- he would not open on principle. I did not give him a shot that day, he did not let me in the apartment even after many of my requests. Sometimes my husband tells me, and many people who know my job: we would never go there. But how can we not go? Working with such people is like being in the woods with a harrow: if you get stuck - you will not get out...
—Your work is hard, both psychologically and physically. How do you relieve stress after work?
— One comes home and dives into woman's usual household chores. I used to knit a lot in the evenings, made new clothes for my children. I have a dacha, I like to do flowers. I like to pick mushrooms very much. We would come to the forest, everyone is running forward, and I go slowly, slowly, without rushing, turn over the leaves, rustle - and I would pick more mushrooms then others.
— What does your family think about your job?
— I have a husband and three sons. Everybody helped me: they volunteered, delivered humanitarian parcels. Some beneficiaries still remember them, ask about them. I have three grandchildren, a great-granddaughter was born. My beneficiaries often call me at home, I talk to them for a long time. My family has been used to it since long ago... Though they are worried that my age is no longer appropriate for daily "adventures." And I do not tell them about the hardest situations, I feel sorry for them. All family members are believers, we go to church. Faith helps to live. It helps to work, too. Once they asked me to help a homeless man who came to the church. I got a blessing, and everything went well. I helped him with the documents, I had to go to police with him, and to polyclinic, and to dermatovenerologic dispensary , and to the social protection office ... In the end, they put him in a boarding institution. I saw him later and he said: "Mother Nina, I am so grateful to you! I lived in the street, nobody needed me, and now my life is the best I could ever desire".
—Belarusians have always been noted for such qualities as responsiveness, compassion and kindness. Do you think people have become more selfish and indifferent?
—I get across more and more good people. Honestly. However, neighbors help each other less and less. In the old days, a good neighbor was closer than a relative. And now many of them want to be paid.
— Have you ever meet visiting nurses from other countries? What is different in their work?
— Of course, I have. We have trainings and seminars, and we receive support from foreign Red Cross societies. And the main difference is that they have a narrow specialization: one visiting nurse measures blood pressure, another one gives injections, the third one puts bandages, the fourth one only treats bedsores. And we provide everything, the whole complex of medico-social care.
— Consumer attitude to life takes over the minds of both young and old, they measure things by cars, houses, jewelry... What do you think the wealth is?
— I love the gold of autumn when the maples are yellow and red... And material wealth is emptiness, there is no love or beauty in it.
The life story of Nina Bliznyuk, visiting nurse of the Red Cross, became the basis of the documentary film "Winter will pass" by Alexander Tereshchenko. The film was awarded the Crystal statuette at the International Christian Film Festival "For the best embodiment of humanitarian values of humanity”.