Over 100 YorkU Nursing students thank front line nurses for their dedication to world health in the fight against COVID-19.
I would like to thank you for your service in caring for others at this challenging time. I am extremely inspired by your dedication to the people of your community as you battle on the front lines to care for the sick and injured. You are there for people who would otherwise have no one to turn to. No one to heal and support them. At the same time, you are not able to protect yourself through social distancing because your gift of nursing requires personal contact. To do that in a pandemic… that takes a lot of courage. As a nursing student, I feel extremely moved and inspired by your contribution to society, and hope that one day, it will be me supporting others just as you are today. I am studying to be a nurse because I am driven to care for others as you are, too, and want to make a difference in the world by easing people’s suffering and supporting them through their health journey.
Nurses support their patients in a caring, nonjudgmental way, no matter who the patient is or what their background is. They do everything in their power to prevent suffering, and to help them achieve their goals. This does not stop because of a pandemic. Nurses are hard-working, dedicated, compassionate, and strong. This will remain a consistent fact, no matter what happens in the future. Something that might change, however, is that we will need to find better ways of supporting the nurses and preventing burnout and illness in the nurse. The more we ask of our nurses, the more we need to support them and give back to them just as they have given so much to us. I’m sorry that we are asking so much of you at this time, but I am so grateful and inspired to watch you do what you do with such skill and composure.
Nurses are leaders in this pandemic. They show us not to be afraid of the sick, and not to abandon them in their time of need. While we are all social distancing, and reducing spread of the virus the nurses are stepping up and treating it before it has a chance to infect more of us. Nurses use their unique knowledge base to treat individuals who present with the virus, while instructing the rest of us to avoid contact with each other, to reduce the number of cases. This requires population health care models in addition to individual and family centred care models. This is encouraging because it shows that nurses are ingrained in our society, and they work alongside everyone, not just their interprofessional teams in the hospitals. This is extremely inspiring for me as I hope to practice nursing in the next couple of years, and I want to feel as connected to society in this way.
There are so many roles outside of hospital settings where nurses provide the teaching and care that keep our whole community safer and healthier. Nurses who work with street-involved and homeless persons, patients in hospice and homecare settings, or people who have substance abuse issues are all working to reduce risk and support health. Nurses also teach and carry the important messages about health risks to people in order to prevent them from being sick in the first place. In times of crisis, nurses inspire confidence in people that they will be taken care of. Some people will never feel safe going to a hospital, but nurses go to where they are. In the future, I hope the importance of the nursing profession will become part of planning better community supports and resources, and also support nurses themselves in taking frontline risks without paying huge personal costs themselves.
So, dear nurse. Thank you for everything you are doing for this community, and for the world. Your hard work does not go unnoticed.
Take care and keep safe.
Sincerely,
P.D.F., York University Nursing student