International Nurses Day being observed today

Mariecar Jara-Puyod, Senior Reporter

The world celebrates for the 45th year on May 12 International Nurses Day, after the 120-year-old International Council of Nurses (ICN), the representative of 20 million nurses worldwide from 130 national nurses associations, marked the day for the immeasurable contribution of their vocation to healthcare since 1974.

May 12 is the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the Italian-born British social reformer and statistician, known as “The Lady with the Lamp” for visiting wounded soldiers of the 1853 to 1856 Crimean War with a lamp in the night, responsible for introducing and implementing modern methods in hospital care.

For 2019, the ICN chose the theme “Nurses: A Voice to Lead, Health for All” with its chief executive officer Howard Catton stating in their website: “ICN plays a key role in ensuring nurses’ voices are heard at the highest levels of policy-making.”

Over at the University Hospital Sharjah, Nursing director Abdalrahman Altamimi told Gulf Today: “As nurses, we have a vital voice to lead and make a difference by our power to influence our patients, their families, colleagues and other healthcare providers as part of a multidisciplinary team.”

She mentioned five ways to the vision of health for all:

*  Nurses provide appropriate, accessible and evidenced-based care to patients, in accordance to their scope of practice.

*  With their scientific skills and with their basic role to care for and support patients, they are “ideally placed to lead and inform health services decision-making and policy development.

*  As the “most trusted and respected health professions” nurses play a key role in addressing the innumerable health challenges.

* Nurses are the backbone and engine of all healthcare systems expected to respond immediately to the needs of each and every person wherever they are.

* Nurses are mandated to take an active role in the propagation of all information and the promotion of all preventive measures against all diseases.

The hospital Intensive Care Unit (ICU)-Charge nurse Rochelle Lynne Garan Sacramento shared one unforgettable experience in her 19 years of work experience full of “unique patient cases and difficult families.”

It was the case of an elderly woman rushed to the ICU as “respiratory distress whose eyes clearly showed “she was tired and needed help, her eyes begging for help as we were preparing all things to intubate her.”

“When I was on duty, I always made a point to stay a few minutes alone with her and whisper ‘Mama you have to fight’ and pressed her hands praying for her recovery. On the way to her full recovery, the elderly patient introduced Sacramento to her visiting family as “her angel.”

“It was a sincere appreciation. I saw it in her eyes as she held my hand and kissed it,” Sacramento also said. This patient really struck me deep in my heart and caused me to be a better nurse,” she added.

Sacramento then explained that in one of the hospital’s “Code Blue” or emergency cases she took part in, the “pale, lifeless patient with bluish lips, cold hands and distended abdomen lying on a stretcher”  at the Resuscitation Unit of the Emergency Room turned out to be the same elderly patient.

“I wiped her face as I assisted the doctor to intubate her. My heart beat faster than usual. My knees trembled. Then I recognised her, my mama,” she said, adding she had passed away.

“She had been found unconscious by her maid. Being a nurse is lot of hard work and emotion. We cannot blame families but we pray and hope that we can make a change, to continue educate families for better outcomes.”

Hospital-Out Patient Department-Charge nurse Silvia Preethy Samuel said: “Nursing is a calling. Fortunately, I was called to it.”

She looked up to an aunt who worked for 25 years in the defence sector of their homeland serving their military officials and personnel.    

UHS Nurse manager Hana’a Rauhi Radi Ayesh was asked of her opinion with regard to the need for more nurses worldwide.

Ayesh said: “Nurses are far from one-trick employees. They perform countless vital tasks in hospitals, nursing homes, and schools, among others. The number of nurses on hand—or a lower nurse-to-patient ratio has been directly related to patient survival and recovery without additional complications.”