The Integrative Therapy Program at Women and Infants Hospital

In April 1994, I founded the integrative therapy program at the Women and Infants Hospital. It was the first integrative program of its kind in the country.  I used essential oils and massage reflexology to help relax and calm the chemotherapy patients before and after their treatments and after their seaweed body wrap or Moor Mud treatment to help with detoxification.  For several years after I started the program, I was constantly insulted by the doctors, nurses, and staff members about the smell of the essential oils and seaweed.  I was told so many times to go back to Jamaica because I was working "voodoo."  I managed to persist through this discrimination because the patients loved and appreciated what I was doing and how it helped them.

At the time, I was forbidden to explain to the patients what treatment I was giving them because others claimed that there was no such thing as reflexology, so I had to call it a foot massage.  A year after I started the integrative program, I carried out a survey to get a better idea of what other types of therapies patients would like; I added pet therapy.  This type of therapy consisted of volunteers bringing their dogs to the program so that patients would be able to pet them while they were undergoing their chemotherapy treatments.  It proved to be a very effective of keeping the patients calm and relaxed.  Six months later, I conducted another survey to find that patients were interested in yoga, hypnosis therapy and reiki healing; they were all added to the program.  I also started a poetry project where patients would write poetry while they were undergoing chemotherapy sessions.  I would display their works in an album for patients and staff to read and review.

By this time, I was already three years into the program and still experiencing resistance from the doctors and staff who continually insulted me.  I had a business at this time and was able to invest into the program and did not receive any help from the hospital because they still believed I was conducting "voodoo."  I still persisted and paid out of pocket for three massage therapists to do massages and I would do the body and reflexology treatments.  Then, after people started to find out about this wonderful integrative therapy program, yoga instructors, reiki workers and hypnosis therapists began to offer their services for a great cause.

In 1998, I added a Lymphedema treatment service to further help the patients.  Again, I faced another challenge because of claims form the doctors that such a treatment did not exist.  To help combat the Lymphedema that the patients suffered from, doctors would give them water pills, but these pills would not work with cancer patients who had Lymphedema.  I paid, with my own money, to send two of my massage therapists to school to become trained and certified in Lymphedema therapy treatment.  Then, in 1999, one of my friends who worked in the billing department at the hospital came to me because the department had just received a new billing code book and she had noticed that there was a code for Lymphedema treatment.  She asked if this was the same treatment that I did and I said yes.  She then decided to help me set up a billing system for the treatments; this took almost two years, but we managed, and the oncology department at Women and Infants started billing for these treatments and this is how the Lymphedema therapy really took off. It became so successful because the hospital was now getting paid for the treatments, unlike before when I did it for free.

For ten years I devoted myself to building this program and paid other people to run my business.  I had no support from any of the doctors and staff at the hospital.  Instead, they constantly and continually insulted as I dedicated myself to the patients.  Imagine going to a medical institution, where doctors do not believe in many of these therapies, and starting an integrative therapy program of this caliber largely by yourself.

After it was really evident that my program was becoming a huge success, colleagues and doctors started to become interested.  Suddenly, everyone wanted to know how the program was started and how it became such a success.  At this point, when everyone became more interested, the oncology department began taking all of the credit for the integrative therapy and Lymphedema program, which I started with my own money, time and products.

Then one Friday morning in April 2004, ten years after starting the program, I went to work as usual when, as I was walking down the hallway of the oncology department, the head of the department called out to me.  I turned around and walked into the office where she cold heartedly informed me that I was no longer the director of the integrative therapy program - the program that I started with my own money and time.  How could they possibly take it away from me?  I never received an explanation.  They showed no sympathy or emotion.  My program was gone just like that.  I tried desperately to have them me why they took my program from me, but I still got no response.

It has been a decade now, and I still have not recovered from this loss.  I started that program without a college degree or any medical background; it truly was my miracle.  Now, the oncology program is very successful from the Lymphedema treatment therapy because insurance started to pay for it.  To add to my misfortune, I had lost my own business and do not even have medical insurance.  One would think that after 10 years of suffering, I would be over this, but the pain and hurt worsens after each year, because I do not have closure.  I do not know what happened to my program and why I was fired from it without any explanation.  Each day I think about this program and each day I am in tears because I cannot recover from the pain.  I do not know how I am going to overcome this pain and hurt - only God knows.