CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It is National Nurses Week, a time to recognize the hard work and sacrifices nurses make to care for our community. They put their own health at risk and have persevered through many waves of COVID-19.
This year is the first in recent years that many local hospital systems could celebrate nurses safely in person. Nurses have been the backbone of the health care system during the pandemic.
“There’s not a lot of silver linings of what we went through, but I think just knowing that we got through it is enough,” Jodie Curley, an ICU nurse with Piedmont Health said.
She admitted getting through it wasn’t always easy.
“We persevered through a really tough time as a profession,” she said. “Something that we haven’t seen in modern medicine.”
Day after day, nurses bravely show up. Rob Rose with Atrium Health has shown up for almost three decades.
“When you needed help, nursing had our arms open to the community," Rose said. "When people couldn’t breathe, because they had COVID so bad, our EDs were open to receive those patients. We never shut down we took all the patients all the time."
Nurses don’t do it for the praise, but National Nurses Week is a time to recognize and respect all they do.
Novant Health threw a big lunch for its team members.
Courtney Cortes, the Director of Nursing for Emergency Services at Novant Health Presbyterian, said little actions go a long way.
“We’ve all been behind the mask, and we still are of course in the hospital, but out here it’s just uplifting to say okay we can sit down and break bread together and enjoy a little bit of downtime and a breather and a meal,” Cortes said.
The pandemic has led to a lot of stress, frustration, and burnout. Data shows many nurses are choosing to leave the bedside, exacerbating a nursing shortage that existed before the pandemic.
Cortes had a simple answer for why she comes back every day.
“My team," she said. "I have the best team on the planet."
Most nurses will agree.
But in hospitals across the country, the team is getting smaller. This National Nurses Week is a time to recognize the resilience and the benefits of being at the bedside.
“Although we go through our ebbs and flows of shortage and surplus and shortage and surplus, we are a strong group,” Bonnie Meadows, a cardiac surgery nurse with Atrium Health, said.
She’s been a nurse for 18 years and says it’s been rewarding.
“Nursing is the absolute hands down best profession ever,” she said.
Navigating the new normal with COVID-19 will require more hands on deck. Cortes thinks now is the perfect time to join the profession.
“I think we’re at a point where we are figuring out we have a whole new level of playing field, how we can operate how we can really get creative," she said. "It’s a time where nurses can really come in and be a part of a new movement."
One positive sign, Northeastern University in Uptown has seen growing class sizes year after year for its accelerated bachelor’s in nursing program, preparing the next generation of nurses.
Contact Chloe Leshner at cleshner@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.