Nurses Week: Our Nurses, Our Future

The K.H.M.H. has commenced its annual celebration of nurse’s week, a time meant to honor the one hundred and seventy nurses staffed at the hospital. From May sixth to the twelfth, nurses will be recognized and rewarded for their commitment to ensuring the health of Belizeans, despite the hardships that come with the field. When the hospital is short of staff, nurses often work sixteen-hour shifts, making burnout one of the major challenges to overcome. This nurse’s week, we highlighted nurse Kalifa Gray, who told us what being a nurse means to her. Here’s News Five’s Britney Gordon with that story.

 

Kalifa Gray, Nurse & Midwife, K.H.M.H.

“It’s the passion. It’s only the passion that keeps you here. The love that for what you do and caring for your patients and seeing the outcome at the end, that’s what keeps me going.”

 

Britney Gordon, Reporting

For Kalifa Gray, a twenty-seven-year-old nurse and midwife at the KHMH, her job is never done. From the moment she wakes up until the moment she goes to sleep, she is thinking of ways to provide the best care to her patients. This dedication came from her passion for the field. A desire, she has had from a very young age.

 

Kalifa Gray

“I had the dream of becoming a nurse from around the age of five years old, around probably career day. That was just a childhood dream that transpired over to being a reality for me in my professional life. And it was a journey of just going straight from being in high school doing my sciences and going over to UB at the age of sixteen and completing my program in four years and then joining here at Karl Heusner in my professional life.”

 

Gray has served as a nurse at the KHMH for six and a half years and most recently became a midwife for the labor and delivery ward.

 

Kalifa Gray

“We work on both the maternity ward and the labor and delivery ward. So that includes assisting mothers giving birth and delivering babies, receiving babies from cesarean sections and just providing care and education for mothers to be able to take care of their newborns when they go back into the real world.”

 

According to Gray, the hours for nurses are intense, as the hospital struggles to meet the demands of patients with low staff. She said that overcoming burnout is a daily struggle for some nurses.

 

Kalifa Gray

“So nurses work twenty-four seven, three hundred sixty-five days of the year. So we work eight-hour shifts. And so that’s probably a shift from seven a.m. to three p.m., three p.m. to eleven p.m. And then fortnight nurses are clocked in at eleven p.m. to seven in the morning. And most times we do have nurses who work sixteen hours straight to cover shifts because of the short staff that we experience here within Karl Heusner.”

 

Despite the grueling hours, Gray said that it all becomes worth it when she sees her patients return home to their families in good health.

 

Kalifa Gray

“I think one of the best parts of being a nurse is seeing how our patients get to go home healthy and happy with their newborn. And that’s quite rewarding for us because there are so much that could go wrong in a delivery. And so just being able to see our patients going home healthy and satisfied is rewarding for me.”

 

Gray often works in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, which specializes in the care of ill or premature babies. She recalls becoming overwhelmed with emotion as she witnessed the recovery of one of her particularly premature patients. She pinpoints this moment as one of the highlights of her career.

 

Kalifa Gray

“I think one of the moments that standout the most to me was when I was moved over to the NICU department and learning how to care for newborns at a tender age of twenty-seven, twenty-eight weeks.  I watched the transition of newborns and neonates being nurtured, being cared for being resuscitated day after day within the NICU and three months later going home as a healthy bouncing baby. I think that was one of the points in my career where I said, this is the time. This is love. This is what I enjoy doing. This is a miracle and I get to see it every day.”

 

Nurses’ Week celebrations at the KHMH began with a staff breakfast leading into an award ceremony. Gray explained that the staff is grateful for the reminder that they are appreciated and that their hard work is recognized.

 

Kalifa Gray

“Nurses Week this week is significant to us as nurses and specifically to me because we get to celebrate ourselves. We get to encourage each other. We get to be recognized. There is awareness within the community that If you have a nurse who is a friend, who is a sister, who is a brother, to be able to show gratitude to them and let them know that they are doing a good job.”

 

Britney Gordon for News Five.