Sharing the joy of being a nurse

From time to time we all like to reflect and think about what is important in our lives, be it family, friends, careers, jobs or hobbies.

Increasingly, we get appreciative, flattering, sentimental, or mawkish round-robin messages via social media, encouraging us to ‘share’.

My sister shared this unattributed message with me today and I leave it to you to decide in which category it belongs. It is about nurses, and can be accessed on the Nurses Rock Facebook page.

Someone asked: ‘You’re a nurse?! That’s cool, I wanted to do that when I was a kid. How much do you make?’

The nurse replied: ‘How much do I make? I can make holding your hand seem like the most important thing in the world when you’re scared. I can make your child breathe when they stop… I can help your father survive a heart attack. I can make myself get up at 5am to make sure your mother has the medicine she needs to live. I work all day to save the lives of strangers. I make my family wait for dinner until I know your family is taken care of. I make myself skip lunch so that I can make sure that everything I did for your wife today is charted. I make myself work weekends and holidays because people don’t just get sick Monday through Friday. Today, I might save your life. How much do I make? All I know is, I make a difference.’

To be honest it’s a wee bit too selfless for me, but each to their own!

It prompted me to search online for a tribute that we can pay each other and I found this: images of nurses through time, put together by a nurse who takes pride in her work and wanted to share it with others. You might want to turn the sound down, or not! But do pass it on.

About the author

Bríd Hehir is a fundraising manager for Do Good Charity which sponsors nurse training and education in Africa. She worked in the NHS until 2011, as a nurse, midwife and specialist heath visitor, and latterly a senior manager. She is a regular contributor to spiked and is a Battle of Ideas committee member