On Call 24 Hours a Day, Seven Days a Week

The call for nurse Nancy came from Pamela McDuffy, who often extends a helping hand to others in East L.A.’s projects: “Nancy, I need you. . . .”

When Nancy Robles reached the neonatal intensive care unit at White Memorial Medical Center, she found the family of baby “David” at his bedside. They had decided to take him off life support.

Born drug-addicted, the child was a year old, only 10 pounds and had spent his life in the hospital, in constant pain. Still, letting go was emotionally wrenching for his family.

Robles was there “to hold their hands and to hug them and to let them know that maybe this was the best decision, giving this baby back to God and allowing this baby to be in peace.”

Robles is White’s parish nurse, the hospital’s term for a nurse who serves as a liaison with the community. She is part friend, part confidante, with duties as straightforward as teaching basic home first aid--”The first thing I learned was that nobody had a thermometer”--and as challenging as bringing hope to a community plagued by hopelessness.

Beeper in hand--”I’m on call seven days a week, 24 hours a day”--Robles says it is not the mean streets that scare her. It’s rats. Giant rats that crawl over her parked car. Says Robles with a laugh: “I’ll ask one of the gang guys to walk me to my car.” Should he protest that he might be bitten, she’ll say, “I’m a nurse. I can help you.’ ”

Almost two years on the job as White’s first parish nurse, Robles, 39, has forged an easy rapport with those she serves. Like them, she is Latino and a Catholic. And she is no carpetbagger, having been born at White and reared in the neighborhood, one of five children of a financially struggling family.

“Nancy is a blessing,” says McDuffy, who’s lived 41 years in the Pico-Aliso project. “I’ve seen several children at the point of suicide and she was able to intervene and get them stable. I think God gives us gifts and Nancy’s gift is dealing with people in crisis.”

Robles spends most of her days in the field, visiting schools and churches within a 6-mile radius of White. She may give sexuality classes or nutrition tips or counsel girls traumatized by gang violence. Sometimes the most important thing she does is to listen.

One day, sitting on a parched patch of lawn at Pico-Aliso, she was talking with a few of the young men who live there. They seemed to sense how she feels about them: “They are great kids. They’re just in a really bad environment.”

The guys were talking:

“You get tired of getting caught up in the middle of somebody else’s war. . . .”

“If nothing else, it makes the day go faster if you’re involved in shooting somebody or beating somebody up. . . .”

When it was appropriate, Robles pointed out that paybacks only perpetuate the cycle of violence.

The youths talked about the drug dealers who prowl the area in their Mercedes and “leave us with all the trouble.” And about gangs as surrogates for parents who are busy “just trying to keep our little brothers and sisters alive.” They talked about war in the streets. “We’re all fighting, killing each other. But we’re all stuck here. We ain’t going nowhere.”

Afterward, Robles shook each hand in a gesture that said, “I’m here if I can help.” Next stop: St. Mary’s Catholic Church, where Sister Maria Aurelia, the “nun on the run,” is sorting produce she’s scavenged to feed the 150 to 200 families that come each week for help.

But first, Robles will talk to the families. She may hand out toothbrushes and explain, “I understand you don’t have toothpaste, but you still need to brush with water.” Or she may monitor blood pressure, remind parents of White’s free immunization program for kids or urge the women to speak out against domestic violence.

It’s standing room only next door, where LAPD Hollenbeck Division Dets. Al Pantages and Maria Martinez are conducting a parenting class for Robles.

Can we spank our kids? They say we can’t, we’ll go to jail.

Pantages says, “There’s a difference between discipline and punishment. You don’t spank for spilt milk. You do for insubordination.” In 17 years, he adds, “I’ve never booked a parent for spanking a kid.”

How do we keep them out of gangs?

Pantages: “When a guy 12 or 13 years old comes in at 10 o’clock, hug him, see what he smells like.” If you smell liquor, “Bring him in and we’ll talk to him.”

How do you keep your kid in school?

Martinez: Take responsibility, “even if you have to tie him up and take him there. You’ve got to stop giving your kid everything and start doing the job of a parent. If you don’t, go buy a rosary to pray over him. And go get the box.”

Another day, Robles is at Dolores Mission Alternative School. Most of these students have been kicked out of public school, but some, gang members, are here for their own protection. A school van picks them up if they’re afraid to walk or come by bus. In September, a girl student, 16, was killed in a drive-by shooting off campus.

This day, Robles is discussing sexually transmitted diseases. In this community, she knows, girls of 12 are looking for love and finding sex. One out of five will become pregnant before age 15.

In class are three boys and five girls, two with babies. One boy proclaims the whole lecture “boring,” but most are attentive.

Robles’ core message: “You don’t have to say yes to anybody. The only person who can take care of you is yourself. You can’t pay someone to do that, even in Beverly Hills.”

The kids relate to her, says site coordinator Michael Dakan, “especially the girls. People get so caught up in helping the guys, the whole gang thing, but the women end up having the children and everybody just kind of forgets about them.”

The school has neither a nurse nor a counselor full time; Robles is an important presence. Her only agenda is the kids’ issues: sex, alcohol and drug abuse, locked-up boyfriends, abusive parents and boyfriends. She is part mother, part sister, part professional role model.

Her supervisor, Dee Williams, calls her “a very comforting link to the community, especially the elderly, who very often are socially isolated.” Al Deininger, White’s vice president for ambulatory care, praises her “passion and commitment to this community.”

Robles came to her job from one at a private psychiatric hospital, where “women had the luxury of going into a hospital for three weeks because their husbands left.” As parish nurse, she says she feels “like someone gave me wings and I can fly.”

* This weekly column chronicles the people and small moments that define life in Southern California. Reader suggestions are welcome.