Guidance and support for young nurses participating in the department’s nursing research program. The preliminary plan is managerial participation in the nursing research program as well as follow-up discussions with the participating nurses. The focus is on career paths and further support for competency development.
15 nurses and midwives have been enrolled on this Nightingale Challenge programme.
On adapting to the COVID-19 crisis:
- What are the main challenges your nurses are facing right now?
- The main challenges the nurses are facing are the need for being able to rearrange the departments and the way they work so that it fits the new group of patients with COVID-19, and that with a very short time limit. To put away their own fear of getting the disease themselves and bringing it home to their families. Especially the nurses who are taking care of the patients who are not (yet) diagnosed with COVID-19. This staff is not recommended to use any protection even if they have to be closer than 2 meters to the patients when taking care of their personal needs. It is only the patients which is under observation or already diagnosed with COVID-19 that we can allow us to spend protection equipment on (due to the shortness off protection gear), and that gives some frustration in the nursing group – because sometimes this patient can get symptoms and are diagnosed with COVID-19 the day after the nurse have been handling the patient unprotected.
- It is also a challenge for the nurses who usually works from our outpatient clinics suddenly to have to work in the bed-departments to ensure that we have enough resources in place to take care of the patients with COVID disease. It also leaves our outpatient clinic with fewer resources to take care of the patients which treatment are still in there hands.
- How are you overcoming these challenges?
- We have tried to give the nurses from the outpatient clinic time to learn their new work routines before it gets really tough with an overload of patients. The staff nurse and her co-workers are constantly up front to provide the staff the latest information about COVID-19, so that the nurses always know what to do. And our staff nurse have daily contact with the nurses who are sick themselves to monitor the spread of the disease amongst the staff.
- How are your nurses adapting?
- I must say that our nurses have been coping with the situation in the finest manner. Despite the anxiety the have done a wonderful job and have quickly learned the new ways off working. Of course some of the nurses say that it is hard not knowing how long it will take and when all will be back to normal.
