Nurses celebrate special day
NURSES at hospitals and clinics around Nelson Mandela Bay celebrated World Nurses Day yesterday, with paediatric nurses treated to a special lunch honouring them for their work with critically ill children.
Among those invited to the celebration lunch was one of the Port Elizabeth’s longest-serving nurses, Sister Leonie Swanepoel, who retired from Livingstone Hospital recently after working at the state hospital for 45 years and a month.
To celebrate World Nurses Day, the Reach for a Dream foundation and Ocean Basket invited paediatric nurses to the lunch to show their thanks for their work with critically ill patients.
“The objective of our Nurses Day campaign is to commemorate this important day by thanking the nurses,” Reach For A Dream marketing and communications manager Bronwyn Feldwick-Davis said.
“We really want to acknowledge them for their hard work and dedication because often they go without any appreciation or thanks.”
Ocean Basket business adviser Colin Haupt and Brooks on the Hill restaurant owner Danny Boueri served lunch to the nurses to show their thanks.
World Nurses Day is celebrated on the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth.
At the Life hospitals in Port Elizabeth, nurses celebrated the day by lighting a lamp and renewing their pledge.
Bruce Janssens, Life Healthcare’s regional manager for hospitals in the Port Elizabeth and Border-Kei area, said: “We are proud of the dedication our nurses show to their patients and our hospitals every day.
“Today is about thanking all of our nurses for everything that they do every day to make our patients better.”
Netcare nursing and nursing education director Shannon Nell said the nursing profession had much to celebrate.
“The training of nurses, the content-forming part of the educational curriculum, new methodologies and the way nursing is taught both at institutions of learning and practically in healthcare institutions, have given new life to what is essentially an age-old caring profession, steeped in compassion and respect,” Nell said.
SA Medical Association chairman Dr Mzukisi Grootboom said: “Too often nurses’ dedication, commitment and professionalism in the face of serious challenges, go unnoticed.
“As the voice of doctors in South Africa we want to acknowledge this day and recognise their massive contribution to healthcare provision in our country.”
