Hospital staff and volunteers are being recognized throughout the country this week.
Two separate celebrations, National Nurses Week and National Hospital Week, are held each year to commend medical staffs and volunteers and Tyrone Hospital is no exception in joining in the events.
Hospital spokesperson Theresa Yanchetz said Tyrone celebrates both events jointly to recognize medical staff, employees and volunteers. She said it is a way to say thank you to those people. This year’s theme is “A Calling to Care.”
She said the hospital wanted to make this week something fun and special for people who provide healthcare services. Yanchetz said one tradition has been to provide workers and volunteers with a complimentary lunch.
She said staff and volunteers will also be involved with hat decorations and dress down days. Yanchetz also said vendors have provided gift items for giveaways. The hospital will be awarding tickets to the Altoona Curve’s Tyrone Night at Blair County Ballpark on June 12.
Yanchetz said the hospital has a staff of about 160 people.
A release from the American Nurses Association said this year’s theme for National Nurses Week is “Nurses: Many Roles, One Profession.” It was chosen by the ANA to celebrate the wide breadth of roles in nursing practice, as well as nurses\’ professional unity, their voice and their strength.
“Representing the largest of the health professions, nurses are the 24/7 caregivers who provide expert care in many divergent settings,” said ANA President Barbara Blakeney, MS, RN. “Today\’s RNs not only care for patients in acute-care hospitals, nursing homes and many community settings, as they always have, but they also are actively carving out new roles for themselves in such burgeoning fields as forensic nursing, nursing informatics and public policy.”
Blakeney noted demand for nurses and nursing services is strong and is going to get stronger. Statistics show a nursing shortage of 150,000 RNs and a need for more than 800,000 by 2020.
“The good news is that it\’s an exciting time to be a nurse because not only are there many job opportunities, but there is room to expand and grow as a professional,” said Blakeney.
She also noted a concern for adequate funding for nursing education.
Increased federal funding is needed to reverse this trend, said Blakeney. “That is why ANA has made achieving increased nurse education funding a top priority on its 2005 lobbying agenda. In order to stem the nation\’s escalating nursing shortage, ANA supports proposals in the Senate and House of Representatives for $175 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 2006 funding for Title VIII nursing workforce development programs, including the Nurse Reinvestment Act. This minimal level of funding is desperately needed in order to keep these programs up and running,” she said.
The release also noted another chief focus of National Nurses Week this year is on improving the nursing work environment in part to protect the health, welfare and well-being of working nurses but also to make nursing a more attractive profession to potential newcomers.
“We need to reduce the hazards in the nursing work environment that are driving many nurses out of the profession, and we need to make nursing safer so that it becomes a more appealing career choice,\” Blakeney noted. \”That\’s the real key in solving the nursing shortage.”
Information on its Web site said the ANA is the only full-service professional organization representing the nation\’s 2.7 million registered nurses through its 54 constituent member nurses associations.
National Nurses Week (May 6-12) coincides with the birthday of Florence Nightingale on May 12. Yanchetz said National Hospital Week (May 8-14) was created in 1921.
