La Sean Davis-Semple, a Medical Social Worker with a passion for patients

Mar 14, 2021 News

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By Rehanna Ramsay

Kaieteur News – Helping to provide emotional and psychological support for patients diagnosed with a life-threatening disease is no easy task; just ask La Sean Davis-Semple, a Medical Social Worker attached to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC)’s Nephrology and Kidney Transplant Department.

Mrs. Davis-Semple joined the GPHC as a dispatcher for the ambulance in August 2001 and later moved on to become a clerk and then studied to become a social worker.
Since then, Davis-Semple has been there for some of her clients’ during their darkest hours; from their diagnosis, treatment and sometimes death.
She explained nonetheless that she would do nothing to change the course of her work even in the face of challenges presented by the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
In her own words, she explained that a medical social worker is defined by the support they help to provide for people suffering from various degrees of illnesses.
In Davis-Semple’s case, as a medical social worker, her job involves advocating for patients who are on dialysis, starting dialysis, or who will be getting transplants. As part of her duties, she supports the patients by counselling and helping to raise awareness about the issues associated with the various phases of kidney disease.
The transplant/dialysis social worker serves as a support system for the patient and their family in adjusting to and understanding end-stage renal disease (ESRD).
She noted that “being told you have ESRD is understandably challenging and overwhelming; this is when the services of a social worker are imperative. The social worker is the patient‘s advocate, and serves as a bridge in communicating your needs to the treatment team members, which consist of the nephrologist, nurses, dietician, social worker, and of course, the most important person, the patient.”
As part of her duties, almost on a daily basis, she interviews patients and documents their medical/social progress. These interviews are instrumental in helping her to ascertain her clients’ social, economic, and emotional needs.
The medical social worker then works in tandem with other development programmes to address the needs of these patients. In some cases, she would also conduct home visits when necessary for persons who need that additional support.
Davis-Semple also helps to link clients to agencies and programmes that will meet their needs.
This is what she refers to as group networking to help her clients expand and strengthen social support services. All of the abovementioned responsibilities sit on the shoulders of Davis-Semple, the sole social worker attached to the Nephrology and Kidney Transplant Department at the GPHC.
Perhaps, what is most startling and commendable about her work is that she has managed hundreds of patients who come to the department.
Though the country was on a partial lockdown after the beginning of the pandemic last year March, the medical social worker continued to reach out to patients via telephone.
“I had to keep checking on them because having one illness is already very hard but then they now had COVID-19 to worry about. So I was on call and I had to organise with the team members, doctors, and nurses to ensure they were receiving all the support they needed,” she said during an interview with Kaieteur News.
Davis-Semple noted that like most of us, those suffering from kidney failure were dealing with the added mental stress of having to navigate life without contracting the deadly virus.
“It is common for them to suffer from depression but when the pandemic came, they needed that reassurance. So I reached out to them, even though many of them couldn’t come into the hospital as normal, we had to try to reach them as much as possible,” she explained.
In addition to the counselling sessions, the medical social worker organised with various agencies to provide hampers for the patients.
“I know the pandemic created a number of other issues for many homes, so I called on a couple of private entities like Bounty Supermarket and Guyana Motor Racing and Sports Club that I network with, to provide hampers for the clients.”
She said that she would regularly interface with most of her colleagues in an effort to help patients cope and recover from the illness.
“I think as a department, we are very blessed to have our patients navigate this deadly pandemic with minimal. Yes, we had a few persons who contracted the virus but we don’t have deaths to report as far as I am aware. So we are thankful for that!” added Davis-Semple.

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