Page 18 - Healthcare News May/June 2022

SALUTE TO NURSES CONT’D Support Systems
Hospitals Take Creative Steps to Attract and Retain Nurses
BKy KAILEY HOULE
elly Chevalier, DND, is a military veteran, having served in the Air National Guard at Barnes Airport in Westfield.
She said there have been many comparisons between actual combat and day-to-day life in hospitals and other healthcare settings at the height of COVID. She believes they are valid.
Recalling those days, Chevalier, director of Nursing Education at Mercy Medical Center and director of the Emergency Department, said healthcare professionals would show up for work facing a great unknown and danger to their own health and safety.
“That made me proud to be a part of this career and proud to be a nurse,” she said, comparing the nurses she worked beside to soldiers going into battle. “They showed up when a lot of people didn’t want to.”
But while most nurses did, indeed, show up, combatting COVID and its many side effects has taken its toll — on both the nursing profession locally and everywhere, and on facilities trying to maintain a full staff of nurses.
As Chevalier and others told HCN, COVID prompted many nurses who were at or near retirement age to take that step and leave the profession be- hind. And for some not near retirement, the COVID fight and a desire not to endanger the health of loved ones prompted them to look at other career options, with many eventually finding opportunities elsewhere.
This dramatically altered landscape has left area hospitals scrambling to fill their nursing ranks, often resorting to the hiring of very expensive
“Quiet rooms’ like these at Mercy Medical Center are just one of the initiatives aimed at helping nurses and other healthcare professionals battle stress.
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18 WWW.HEALTHCARENEWS.COM MAY/JUNE 2022