December 28, 2016
The joy of spending Christmas and New Year’s with the family is the focus of all the hustle and bustle that consumes the holiday season. Tearing open packages while wearing pajamas, eating together around the table, watching the ball drop on New Year’s Eve – that’s the ideal for most of us.
Not everyone, however, gets to spend the holidays at home. Many people – especially hospital employees – work on holidays because the hospital never closes.
If you were off work for Christmas be thankful because the hospitals are fully staffed with doctors, nurses and patients. As sad as it seems, that included Christmas Eve night, Christmas morning, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
Emergencies certainly don’t take a holiday.
Marshall South’s emergency room staff on Christmas Day consisted of about three doctors, two advanced practitioners, eight registered nurses, one secretary/tech and a partridge in a pear tree.
An additional seven nurses reported for work for the night shift. Between 20 and 25 people worked in the emergency department while Santa made his toy rounds to good boys and girls.
A quick poll at Marshall North calculated that about 130 folks staffed the hospital on Christmas day/night. That included everyone from lab staff to ambulance drivers to housekeeping and food service workers.
That’s a lot of your neighbors, friends and possibly family members and co-workers who missed the holidays with their loved ones in order to be on the job at our hospitals.
Unfortunately, some people must spend Christmas in the hospital because they’re sick, which is why floor nurses will be at work, as well as intensive care nurses. Patients have to be fed and rooms must be cleaned.
Even call center employees – those nice ladies who answer your calls to the hospital – must staff their department on a 24-hour basis.
Of course, it’s not just healthcare employees who will be ringing in the holidays at work. A quarter of Americans will be required to work on Thanksgiving, Christmas Day or New Year’s Day this year, according to a study published in USA Today.
Police officers have to be on the job, as do firefighters. Retailers famously have to show up for holiday sales.
Others include 911 operators, news reporters and utility workers. We especially don’t want to forget military service personnel stationed all over the world.
Of course, people who accept these jobs are well aware that sacrifice is required. A doctor, for example, knows up front to expect emergencies to interfere with free time.
Nurses certainly realize that accepting a job caring for the sick is one that cannot be abandoned. They take the job along with the understanding that patients come first.
They make a commitment to be there and to make sure patients have the care they need.
And they’re OK with it because that is the profession they chose because they love nursing or they love being part of the world of healthcare. It’s a passion. It’s a calling.
It’s their home away from home, even on holidays.