She’s a nurse who dresses in jeans and T-shirts. Her clinic is often an alley, a shadowed doorway or under a freeway overpass. Amanda Buccina, R.N., tenderly cares for people few others care about – the homeless who live on the streets.
Buccina is a nurse with the Street Nurse Program, a pilot service started in 2016 by Sutter Health in collaboration with WellSpace Health and Sacramento Steps Forward.
The two street nurses in the program help bring a basic level of healthcare services to homeless people in Sacramento by going to where they live — in parks, under overpasses and in tents alongside the river.
Minor health issues can easily turn serious, if you live on the streets and delay care, Buccina says.
“So that’s right where I go providing treatment, helping them navigate the health system — and being someone they can count on,” Buccina says. “The relationship, I think, is almost the most important part. I work on developing rapport as the first and primary thing.”
In seven short months, the Street Nurse Program worked with more than 200 patients. As word spreads, the numbers keep rising.
The typical day for the street nurses involves providing wound care, medical advice, managing chronic conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, and connecting people to services like housing and social services. In addition to providing healthcare for the homeless, the nurses also take patients to doctor appointments and follow up with them if they’re in the hospital.
“I know what I’m doing makes a difference because I see it,” Buccina says. “Now people come to me. They ask me for advice. They follow through on things I’ve asked them to do. If they know someone is invested in them, it makes it slightly more likely they will be invested.”