Barbara Johnson, Part 1, Transcript Section 4

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Barbara Johnson, Part 1
Transcript Section 4

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BARBARA: -- excuse me. About '88, I believe it was, when I came here, to work with -- they had a job opening here for a health aide. And I applied for it and sent my application here on a Monday and got hired on a Thursday. And I was surprised, you know, that they hired me so fast.

KAREN: Yeah.

BARBARA: Because this is my home town and I wanted to come back here to be with my relatives, you know, here, because I wanted to spend time with them.

And I -- after living in Angoon for quite awhile, I got kind of separated from my -- my family, you know, so it was good coming back here.

It's a little bit different than Angoon, because Angoon didn't have a PA at the time. You know. They have one now but they never used to have one before when I was working there. There was just Jessie and I.

And then the doctor would come in four times a year, and Public Health nurse would come in about the same amount, too. You know, for immunizations and stuff, well baby clinics. And we'd do the clinics with the doctor, see the patients, you know, and help him with that.

And we refer people. And sometimes if anything happens we would have to call the doctor and medevac the patient out, you know. People that would get accidents like maybe a gunshot or, you know, cut, bad cut or something like that.

KAREN: Yeah. Something critical.

BARBARA: Uh-hum. Heart attacks and those kinds of things. But we would see the patients on a regular basis for things like otitis, you know, and pneumonias.

And -- and we'd also -- when Public Health nurse didn't get to see some of the babies, you know, we would go ahead and start their immunizations.
So we were trained to do that, too.

And we delivered babies. The first time I ever helped with a delivery was when the midwife was taking care of a mom that was -- that went into labor when she was only six months pregnant.

KAREN: Oh, boy.

BARBARA: No, it was seven months. I'm sorry. She was seven months pregnant. And she was in Angoon. They -- they didn't have a plane in for her then. It was a little too late to. You know. So my foster mom, Elizabeth Jack, she delivered the baby and it was three pounds. But.

KAREN: Wow.

BARBARA: That that baby lived and --

KAREN: Wow.

BARBARA: -- and she's now a grandma now, too, I guess. But yeah, we delivered quite a few babies there in Angoon. And here in Yakutat, too. So.