Appreciating our nurses should be infinite...not just a damn week...

Hello Beautiful People! Happy Wednesday! I am hoping that today's blog will inspire, lead to a deeper appreciation of our core unsung soldiers on the frontline of this pandemic-Nurses.

Let's go...

This time during the year, we celebrate the work of nurses; highlighting the challenging conditions they often face and advocating for increased investments in the nursing workforce. However, no one could have imagined the extremely critical importance of nurses in our society brought into light by the COVID-19 pandemic. At almost every turn, the media highlights the dire conditions nurses and other health care providers are facing and how staff shortages may impact the healthcare system's ability to save lives.

Though life, as we know it, may have changed, the core mission of nursing has not. The courage and dedication to patients and the teamwork nurses so effortlessly bring to each other has been unshaken. Even in the midst of social distancing, nurses are still providing the human connection patients need to help them heal as they navigate illness and pandemic fear. We often talk about nurses caring for us and how grateful we are for their extraordinary skill and compassion. More than ever, WE need to care for our nurses; one of the best ways to do so? following the CDC guidelines to minimize the spread of this virus.

We depend on the resilience of nurses; their ability to handle anything being thrown at them and yet still report to work, the next day or night to do it all over again is nothing short of amazing. We depend on the conviction of nurses; no matter what the circumstance to treat us daily with their clinical expertise, their care, and compassion. As our nurses are at the forefront of helping us through this pandemic, we need to hold up their resilience with our gratitude. The gratitude we show them is a consistent reminder that they are making a difference; a difference not realized while they are in the thick of overcrowded hospitals and too few resources that have become all too common during this pandemic.

The lesson of Florence Nightingale's nursing practice during the Crimean War is still being applied today during the COVID-19 pandemic-basic handwashing, maintain standards of hygiene, learning from the data and so much more. Today’s nurse practices at a higher level than at any time in history. The decisions that nurses make on a day-to-day basis, and the standard protocols they follow, were reserved for medical doctors a generation ago. Their level of training, their expertise, and their influence on the health and well-being of the patients they serve has never been higher.

And so at a time when nurses are receiving so much support, but also facing the biggest challenges of their careers, we need more nurses, we need to encourage more (especially men, people of color) to enter the field. This is by far an incredibly stressful time to be a nurse, the mission of caregiving has never been more in demand as it is now. It is draining, hard, and will at times test their will and spirit; yet through the course of this war, our nurses show up and show out, never wavering or compromising. I am proud to have a sister who is a nurse and a number of relatives in the nursing field; I see first hand the dedication they put into the work they do; they are warriors on the frontlines with so many others fighting a common enemy. It should not take a week in May to remind us how valuable they are...let's expand that appreciation infinitely.

I salute you, nurses...Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

Show your support by reaching out to any of the nursing associations listed:

HANA-Haitian American Nurses Association- https://www.hanainc.org

American Nurses Association- https://www.nursingworld.org

National Student Nurse Association- https://www.nsna.org

"Save one life, you're a hero, save many lives, you're a nurse"

-Unknown

#nurses #health #wellness #selfcare #COVID #pandemic