More than 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ stooped down to wash the feet of His Apostles in the Upper Room in Jerusalem. Today, a team of nurses with Mount Carmel Health System can be found doing the same thing in Columbus.

The nurses care for the podiatric needs of homeless individuals through Mount Carmel’s Sole Care Clinic, typically the second Tuesday of every month at the Open Shelter located on Parsons Avenue. The clinic is part of Mount Carmel’s Street Medicine program under the Community Health and Wellbeing division.

A team of two or three nurses volunteer each month to serve unsheltered and homeless individuals. They wash the individuals’ feet, perform general examinations and provide foot care if there is a medical need.

Paige Donahue, a registered nurse with Mount Carmel’s Street Medicine program, said nurses can often identify a medical condition simply by examining a person’s feet. Many homeless individuals who are on their feet continuously and unable to take their shoes off are at higher risk for certain medical conditions, she said.

There is a medical need to examine and care for a person’s feet, but the ministry was also inspired by Christ washing the feet of His Apostles. As much as the nurses tend to the person’s sole in caring for their feet, they also care for their soul.

Donahue said the act of washing feet shows honor and dignity to the person being served.

“At the heart, what our volunteer nurses desire to do is to affirm the value and the dignity of every person,” she said. “Something as humble and vulnerable as washing a person’s feet is a way that we’re able to communicate that to our patients, to show that we think your life matters, that you’re valuable.”

Donahue said serving the unsheltered homeless individuals impacted her, and she considers each interaction a privilege. God ministers to the patient through her, she said, and she feels the patient ministers to her through their interaction.

“As a Catholic nurse, this is the heart of why I love nursing,” she said. “I very much feel like God has an invitation within nursing to be able to care and minister for people.”

Several of the homeless individuals she serves suffer from hypertension, also known as high blood pressure, and diabetes. They can be at high risk for diabetic foot ulcers. A number of individuals also have foot calluses or ingrown toenails, which can be painful as they are on their feet often.

Donahue said patients are grateful for the service they receive at the Sole Care Clinic and humbled to let someone wash and care for their feet. 

She said nurses also feel privileged when patients allow them to serve them.

She recalled the words of St. Teresa of Calcutta, who spent many years ministering to the sick and impoverished in Calcutta, India. The saint spoke of encountering Jesus in each sick and suffering person. Donahue said she experiences the love Christ has for each individual in her work.

“I’ve learned so much through our patients and learned so much more about the heart of God through them,” she said. “It very much is a mutual giving when it comes to that. I am more confident in God’s nearness and His closeness and His love for His people through the interactions that I get to have with our patients.”

Jerome Jackson, who has come to the Sole Care Clinic several times, has had a positive experience.

“They do a good job,” he said.

Jackson was experiencing foot calluses and received care at the clinic. 

He described the nurses who cared for him as “nice people.” And while they helped him with the calluses, they also made him feel at ease.

“They make you feel, like, comfortable – home,” he said.

Jackson said the care he received when coming to the homeless shelter inspired him to give back. He said he was homeless for a while and began to volunteer at the shelter. He now works there.

Given his circumstances, “I get blessed,” Jackson said.

Dottie Odrosky serves as a volunteer nurse with Mount Carmel's Sole Care Clinic that assists the homeless and others in need of health care.Photo courtesy Mount Carmel

The clinic was first offered at the former Holy Family School in Columbus’ Franklinton neighborhood, said Dottie Odrosky, who is a volunteer nurse at the Sole Care Clinic.

She helped start the clinic in 2016. After a hiatus during the pandemic, the clinic restarted about six months ago.

For her, she said, foot care is equal parts an “emotional experience and a spiritual experience.

“You access people at a deeper level than about any other thing you can do,” she said. “Eye contact is important for us humans. Touching other people’s feet is powerful.”

Odrosky said she makes a point of asking each patient what their goal is for the day. For some, the answer is another day of sobriety or meeting with a social worker about housing. 

She said a number of the homeless who visit the clinic struggle due to a lack of employment and a lack of transportation. For some, most of their paycheck is spent on bus passes.

Odrosky said she and patients sometimes discuss “things of faith,” Scripture or church, and she connects to the patient through that. No matter the nurse’s or patient’s background, though, Odrosky, who is Presbyterian, remembers who she is modeling.

“We know Who taught us to wash feet,” she said. “It was Jesus.”

Odrosky concludes serving each patient with a prayer. In her years of experience, she said only one person said “no” to praying with her. Ironically, when she asked if she could wish him a great day, he replied, “Amen.” 

It appears the majority are impacted by the care they receive.

“We’ve had people who, actually, they’ve had tears after the whole experience,” she said. “There’s sort of more evidence of how you really reach people.”

By washing an individual’s feet, Odrosky said she can provide the person with one-on-one attention that they might not receive otherwise. She said it is rewarding to connect on a deeper level with patients.

“It strengthens my faith,” she said. “The way that the people react and everything, I think it’s letting us know this is important. It’s not only just what we feel, but we have evidence of this deeper human connection.”

In addition to the Sole Care Clinic, Mount Carmel’s Street Medicine program offers a variety of mobile urgent care services at no cost. The mobile urgent care sets up at soup kitchens, churches and resource centers.

Also as part of the program, doctors take medical supplies and go with a nurse or caseworker to treat individuals in homeless encampments, Donahue said. This could include meeting an individual at a gas station parking lot, under a bridge, or if the individual has housing, where they live.

“One of the doctors that championed street medicine in its early stages in the 90s and early 2000s calls it ‘lost sheep medicine,’ meaning that, in the spirit of the example that Jesus goes out and leaves the 99 to find the one sheep that’s lost, we’re really able to live that out in a tangible way to our patients,” Donahue said.

She said the program decreases barriers that prevent patients from receiving the care they need. Meeting an individual where they are and providing free services can eliminate a choice between paying for food or treatment for a wound.

The care team will also go out to offer an individual lunch, even if the person does not have a medical need, Donahue said. This action shows the person that their life has value, she explained, and a “mutual respect” is formed.

Donahue said she is “amazed” how that one-on-one encounter often opens up many opportunities for the individual. The established care and respect leads many to consider treatment for a substance use disorder or care for hypertension, she said.

“As a Catholic nurse, I’m really grateful to be a part of an organization that offers this and champions a service like this that is so connected to Mount Carmel’s mission of serving the poor in the spirit of the Gospel,” she said.