International Nurses Day

     International Nurses Day is celebrated on May 12th every year. The International Council of Nurses (INC) releases a theme, this year was Nurses: A Force for Change, Care Effective/Cost Effective. It was a good theme to support here at CHUB.

Every day the nurses indicate that they don't feel valued in their profession. In many ways, I agree with them. They are overworked and underpaid. However, as Julie and I often point out to them, if they want to be valued, they need to prove their worth. Taking a 2 hour lunch break on top of a tea break during their 8 hour (Internal Medicine) or 12 hour (ICU) shift, napping on nights, leaving nursing students (many who are licensed nurses and upgrading their degree) alone with the patients, doesn't exactly scream, "I'm taking full responsibility of my position." But true to any double edge sword, why would they work harder when they aren't appreciated.

     This has made our jobs very difficult because it's almost impossible to motivate staff to make changes and about 99% of the time I don't blame them. This year thanks to Medie, we decided to make a big deal out of nurses day. She had this great idea to have the staff and students write on prayer flags why they became a nurse or wanted to be a nurse or what they enjoyed about nursing etc etc. Julie and I were extremely skeptical of this task, not going to lie. But the staff actually got really into it and once Medie had them all strung and hung it looked quite nice in the main breezeway of the hospital.

Alice, Dialysis RN using extra prayer
flags to perform a cheer :)

Medie's flag

Julie and her flag

Main breezeway with all the flags hanging

     Our physician colleagues really encouraged the days celebrations by explicitly thanks nurses and wishing them happy nurses day, which was really great to see. I think this alone helped the nurses take a little more pride in their work. The Matrons and In-Charges wanted to provide some community service so in the morning there were free blood pressure and BMI screenings for the community. Finally, the four HRH Nurses (Melody, Julie, Medie and I) hosted a lunch at the nuns convent right next to the hospital for all the nursing staff. It was a great day. We had 140 people come for lunch, which was just over half of all staff nurses at CHUB.

Blood pressure screening

BMI advice

     Julie really got the Rwandans to change how they thought about Nurses Day. She really stressed to them that this day was celebrating them as nurses, not as managers or in-charges or anything else, but nurses. And furthermore, it was not about the doctors! I think overall the staff enjoyed the celebration. The rest of the week I had nurses that I had never met before coming up to me and thanking me for the lunch, which was extremely nice. It made us all feel very much appreciated, which is incredibly nice.

Speeches before lunch

Melody tearing up as Naasson, our DON thanked
 her for all her work over the last three years.

Our trusty lunch server at the nuns

     Finally, we had a little party for the students Tuesday afternoon to celebrate nurses day. It was one of the school's last days as well so we gave them Fanta and samosas and then agreed to lots and lots of pictures. The students tend to act like the paparazzi with all the photographs taken and I seriously don't think I've ever been photographed so much in my entire life. But it was fun to laugh with them and take the photos after we did a little bit of learning. All in all, it was a really good and successful day.

The student paparazzi

Lessons Learned:

1) Even if you don't feel it every day (or even every month) we really are appreciated for all we do here.

2) The students that drive me crazy sometimes with all their incessant talking during their teaching sessions, actually enjoy their time spent with us.

3) Even when you doubt a technique or activity or idea, it's always worth giving it a shot, because you can be pleasantly surprised by the outcome.