Amazing nurse brings vaccinations to traditional religious communities in US

Nurse Kerri Lutjens looks over Rylan Hofer, an 8-month-old Hutterite, during a home visit at the Tschetter Colony near Olivet, South Dakota. Photo: AP

August 18, 2015 | 9:56am
By Associated Press

OLIVET, S.D. — A spaghetti dinner with people in prairie dress and a church service in German is all in a day’s work for Kerri Lutjens.

The 33-year-old nurse, who doesn’t speak German, has spent the past few years gaining the trust of several communities of Hutterites, a deeply religious people with ancestral ties to the Amish who live in insular farming communities in the Plains, Upper Midwest and Canada.

Although she provides a broad range of care to the eight South Dakota Hutterite colonies she serves, Lutjens has paid particular attention to vaccinating children in these communities and preventing outbreaks like one in Ohio last year in which 383 people, most of them unvaccinated Amish, got the measles.

In the first seven colonies that welcomed Lutjens, the combined rate of children with up-to-date vaccinations has gone from about 13 percent since she started administering vaccines in 2013 to well over 90 percent today. Her work hasn’t gone unnoticed: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently lauded Lutjens’ vaccination success, noting the cultural sensitivity she has shown along the way.



Lutjens has been working within eight South Dakota colonies of Hutterites, a deeply religious people with ties to the Amish, for the past few years. Photo: AP

http://nypost.com/2015/08/18/amazing-nurse-brings-vaccinations-to-traditional-religious-communities-in-us/

http://www.hutterites.org/