Every year, the Mission partners with organizations across Maine and beyond to provide services, education, and more to communities Downeast and on Maine Islands. Jaclyn Janis, a nurse with Northern Light Home Care & Hospice, who joined the Sunbeam crew on a trip to provide Covid and flu vaccines to four islands.
What program or project are you collaborating on with the Mission?
I am working with Island Health, Sunbeam Nurse Simone Babineaux, and the Sunbeam to provide both flu and Covid vaccines on Islesford, Great Cranberry, Isle au Haut, Matinicus, Monhegan, and Frenchboro. During this trip, we visited Isle au Haut, Matinicus, Monhegan, and Frenchboro.
Tell me about the people who will benefit?
I have been thanked profusely by residents on each island that I’ve visited. Having someone bring out vaccines saves people from having to take trips on and off the island. I think it just makes so much sense to bring the vaccines to where people are. I know that by bringing the vaccines to areas where travel might be a barrier, means people are getting the vaccine who may otherwise not due to the trip.
Your gift to the Maine Seacoast Mission makes you part of all we do.
What drives you to do the work you do?
I love being out on the islands. I actual recently started working with Northern Light Home Care & Hospice’s vaccination clinic this year. As soon as I heard that there were some nurses going out to the islands to help with vaccinations and talk about public health topics, I emphatically raised my hand. It’s just a beautiful part of the world. I didn’t even quite realize at the time how awesome, varied, and unique the island communities are.
What do you hope to accomplish?
I want to make things easier for people. I worked in the ICU previously and I’ve seen people die from the flu. It is something that we can vaccinate against. Even if someone gets the flu, maybe they’re not going to be in the ICU or maybe their symptoms aren’t quite as bad as they could be. From a public health standpoint, it is super important for these services to be easy to access in a community setting.
How does working with the Mission benefit the people your organization serves?
Northern Light Health is passionate about bringing healthcare into the community and into people’s homes as much as possible. Access to great healthcare is vital. They’ve had the islands on their radar for quite some time now. The partnership with the Mission is mutually beneficial because we accomplish the same goal of bringing care to people who need it and to make that as easy as possible.
What’s your favorite region of Maine?
That’s such a good question because I am so enamored with all of Maine. Honestly, I think coastal Maine. Generally, I love where I live, but also going to Lubec, Roque Bluffs, coming around here to MDI, and the islands. It’s all really beautiful.
What has been a memorable moment of the trip?
I’ve worked in different medical settings at different healthcare organizations. Labor and delivery and ICU are among the strictest medicalized settings. Sometimes humanity is just lost in that setting for both patients and for caregivers. On the boat, you have people coming in to get their vaccines, but they’re also coming to hang out, eat mac & cheese, grab a cookie, and share in the latest news from the island. That was a striking moment for me. These patients are coming to see me for healthcare that they want – healthcare that allows them to be proactive rather than in a setting where they must be, like the ICU, and are fighting for their lives reactively. I have found myself in a healthcare delivery setting which is very satisfying to me, and it’s what I want to be doing.
What would people be surprised to learn about islands?
I feel like I’m still getting to know the islands myself. Since this is my first year doing the vaccine clinics on the islands, I feel like I still have much to see. I’ve been to about half of the 15 islands that have a year-round population in the last couple of months. No island is the same as the next. There is a lot of uniqueness to the communities on each of the islands. They are very different from one another while still possessing some of those common threads which I find really interesting. I’ve been learning how the people living on islands with smaller populations really do shape what life looks like.