NEWARK, N.J. (PIX11) -- University Hospital in Newark employs 2,000 nurses - the majority of its staff.
PIX11 News spoke to some of University Hospital's nurses - both longtime and new - for National Nurses Day and the start of National Nurses Week.
“I just always wanted to care for people,” said Yusuf Alabi, a cardiac ICU nurse at University Hospital. “That’s just joy for me. It gives me joy.”
Alabi is in his first year as a nurse. He said the best part of his job is being able to watch a patient leave the hospital healthier than when they entered.
“I had a patient that had cardiac arrest come through,” said Alabi. By the end of treatment, Alabi said he was able to “see them talking, see them eating, see them working.”
Yvelande Etienne has been a nurse for five years and specializes in infectious diseases. She worked at University Hospital through the COVID-19 pandemic.
“You have to be compassionate,” said Etienne. “You have to show empathy. And you have to value people for who they are.”
For Etienne, providing care as a nurse goes beyond administering medication or treating symptoms. She works to understand the patient as a whole.
“We don’t only deal with disease,” said Etienne. “We deal with a lot of social needs. We deal with a lot of emotional [needs]. We deal with a lot of addiction needs. So all of this, we have to be able to have the skills and the compassion to be able to serve.”
“Nurses are challenged to always show that they are compassionate, that they are caring,” said Dr. Marthe Leveille, the director of nurse well-being at University Hospital. “They’re often left feeling isolated.”
That isolation often leads to compassion fatigue, a type of traumatic stress that is common in the health care field. Leveille said University Hospital provides nurses access to peer support groups and quiet spaces to ensure that nurses practice self-care.
“The care that we give to the patient is just as important as the way we treat each other here at University Hospital,” said Leveille.
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