“Save one life, you’re a hero. Save 100 lives, you’re a nurse.” – Anonymous
From birth through death, they’re there.
They care for those in pain, dispense life-saving advice, and act as the mediator between doctors, patients and families. Compassion is part of the job, too. Sometimes it’s the part those in care remember most after being discharged from a hospital, hopefully with newfound health.
It’s a hard job. Those in the industry acknowledge its challenges. They love the work nonetheless. They’d like to point out that depictions of their profession in the media or on TV are many things – but accurate isn’t necessarily one of them.
One thing that is accurate: It’s National Nursing Week across Canada until May 14.
The hashtag #YESThisIsNursing is being touted as a way to celebrate the work Canadian nurses do and raise awareness for the multifaceted and often surprising roles that they play in order to fulfil their mandate.
“I think it’s just a really good time to celebrate the hard work the nurses put in to care for the community,” says Christie Warren, a nurse with Lions Gate Hospital’s paediatrics department.
Although it’s nursing week, life in the hospital carries on at its rapid pace, as it always does. There might be time for some celebrating this week, but nurses will continue working fastidiously.
When pressed on the ins-and-outs of their working life, they’d rather focus on the patients. “Our focus is still 100 per cent patient care,” Warren says.
While people familiar with the trope of the selfless nurse wouldn’t be wrong in that assessment, other stereotypes – the ones doled out by a generation of hospital dramas on primetime networks – tend to sell the profession short.
“I think it’s a lot different than what we see on TV because our job is so broad,” explains Warren.
“It’s such a multifaceted job that TV, with the nurse in the white dress and cap taking the temperature, is not all that we do. We do a little bit of everything and we do it well.”
Direct patient care, bedside care, administering medications and patient assessment are just a sprinkling of the duties nurses perform.
Lions Gate’s paediatrics department is on the hospital’s third floor, complete with many private rooms, a couple of lounges and a kitchen. Warren also mentions the department’s “amazing toy room,” a necessity when you’re helping to treat sick kids and youth.
Because she deals with youth, Warren says one of her main duties as a nurse is education – teaching young patients and their families effective care plans for when a patient is discharged.
“You’re often seeing people in the worst days of their lives,” she says, adding it’s largely a nurse’s job to make that day a little easier.
Another nurse, Wendy Lea, paints a picture of nursing in broad yet inspiring strokes. As part of Vancouver Coastal Health’s home care nursing program, she provides care to patients suffering with everything from chronic diseases, infections, to patients in post-operative situations, and she does it all in their homes.
Providing palliative care for those ending their lives in the comfort of their own home, surrounded by loved ones, is an increasingly large part of the job as well.
“I think we help people live the best life that they want to live,” Lea explains. “We don’t follow formulas. We have to find out things that work for the individuals and for families.”
She says she’s one of about 30 home care nurses working on the North Shore. Lea loves her job; she loves helping patients make the transition from hospital to home, where the next phase of healing can truly occur.
“The real environment is the patient’s home and the patient’s community. That’s my favourite part, is seeing them in their home and helping them live the life that they want to live,” Lea says.
Adriane Gear of the B.C. Nurses’ Union says it has become increasingly important for nurses to help patients navigate their way through a very complex health-care system.
“Nurses are pivotal to the patient’s journey,” Gear explains. “All care providers are important, but I think we’re the constant that is always there.”
She goes on: “Nurses are everywhere. … Traditionally, we envision nurses working in an acute care hospital and that’s absolutely true, but nurses are in community, public health, long-term care, mental health settings (and) addictions.”
Last week, City of North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto donned scrubs and shadowed nurses in Lions Gate’s chemotherapy department, part of a Nurse for a Day campaign where the mayor thanked nurses for the critical work they do in the community in the lead up to National Nursing Week.
“Nurses are here every minute of 12 hours of the day,” Warren says. “We are the ones that are with patients the most of any other health-care professional.”
It’s common for the nurses’ union and health-care employers across the province to do something to honour B.C. nurses during the week, but Warren says for the most part it’s not a very well known celebration among the larger population.
“My dad sends me a card,” she says with a laugh.
As is the case with much of the nursing profession, nurses tend to not make it about themselves.
“You know that you’ve made a difference for them and for that family and that’s very, very rewarding to know that you can be a part of that,” Warren says.
