Tina McDonald, a nurse who provides foot care to homebound patients, had to stop seeing patients in Rhode Island in 2023 after state regulators told her state law excludes nurses from providing such care. She now serves patients exclusively in Massachusetts, including Josephine Calhoun of Seekonk, Mass. (Photo by Michael Salerno/Rhode Island Current)
Thirty minutes, every other month was all it took for Tina McDonald to make a difference in the lives of Claudia Dunagan and her nonagenarian mother, Hazel.
Armed with a smile and a bag of sterilized foot care equipment, McDonald, a wound and ostomy nurse, skillfully and gently trimmed the thick toenails that Hazel, a homebound diabetic, could no longer care for herself…