MEDIA RELEASE
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
UNA celebrates National Nursing Week
“At your side, On your side!”
National Nursing Week is an important time to celebrate the tremendous contribution nurses make to the health and well-being of our families. Nurses work around-the-clock to provide the direct personal care that can be essential to recovery.
“Our theme this year is ‘Alberta’s Nurses: At your side, On your side’. It talks about nurses as advocates for the good care of all our patients,” says UNA President Heather Smith. “The profession has a long and proud history of going beyond the immediate role of care and addressing broader issues and concerns that affect the health of our patients,” she says.
United Nurses of Alberta is running messages for Nursing Week on radio stations across Alberta and advertisements in newspapers in most regions as well.
Copies of the ads are on a special Nursing Week webpage on the UNA site at www.una.ab.ca
Nursing Week always falls on the week of Florence Nightingale’s birthday, May 12th. Florence Nightingale first exemplified nurses’ advocacy for good conditions and care for patients. But she was only the first in a long tradition of activist nurses. Just one Canadian example is The Victorian Order of Nurses, which was founded by Lady Ishbel Aberdeen, wife of Canada's then governor-general, in 1896. Shocked by stories of harsh conditions faced by mothers and children with little access to care, Lady Aberdeen helped found the VON. "In the towns they will go to those who cannot now afford the care of trained nurses and often die for lack of it... " she wrote.
“In Alberta, we can be proud to follow the nursing tradition of insisting on good nursing care, and advocating for patients,” says Heather Smith.
United Nurses of Alberta is the union of nearly all the province’s Registered Nurses and Registered Psychiatric nurses as well as a number of Licensed Practical Nurses and other allied health workers. The union now represents close to 25,000 nurses.
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