Awareness and Appreciation are at the Heart of This Year’s Nursing Week
Nursing week is a time to recognize the hard and sometimes dangerous work RNs, nurse practitioners, nursing aids, and LPNs do year round. This year Canada’s National Nursing Week is from May 10-16. The week, which takes place annually and always falls over Florence Nightingale’s May 12th birthday, also overlaps with CMHA Mental Health Week.
The theme for this year’s Nursing Week is #WeAnswerTheCall. The Canadian National Association explains, “The pandemic brought to light the courage and commitment that nurses work under every day and showed the important role that nurses play in the community.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Canadian nurses have been on the front lines long before the pandemic. The work we do across the board from dealing with COVID to caring for seniors, emergency response and general health care, is often undervalued and unappreciated. Since the beginning of the pandemic the stress has continually eroded Canadian’s mental heath; being on the front lines and showing up to an increasingly risky situation daily – sometimes when the very people you are trying to help or even save are verbally or physically abusive – is the reality for too many nurses.
We are truly on the front lines in fighting a virus that has proven to be incredibly tenacious. In addition to the global health threat, COVID has exposed deep issues across a political, economic, and societal lines. The effects of the pandemic on nurses go far beyond what they see in the hospitals and ICUs. Nurses, while heroes, are not superhuman. Mental and physical burnout affects nurses as much as anyone else.
Yet, despite this, nurses show up and provide care regardless the ongoing mental, physical and emotional strain. #WeAnswerTheCall no matter what.
At Exquisicare, we have helped our nursing team remain emotionally engaged in their work by providing the support they deserve and advocating on their behalf in matters of access to compensation benefits, working conditions, and access to vaccines so they can continue to provide excellent care in a safe environment.
Exquisicare honours the nurses that came before us, the nurses on the front lines today, and the nurses of the future. Thank you is not enough. #WeAnswerTheCall. We always have and we always will. No matter what.