Published: May 12, 2008 11:50 am      

Allegany County nurses recognized

Editor's note: The Allegany County Health Department submitted this article in observance of Nurses' Day.

CUMBERLAND - Every day, the nurses at the Allegany County Health Department join America's 2.9 million registered nurses and another 750,000 licensed practical nurses to save lives, maintain and promote the health of millions of individuals.

Today is Nurses' Day, and we would like to recognize all the hard work that the nurses in our community do.

Nurses protect, promote health, prevent illness and injury, and alleviate suffering, and aid and support in the care of individuals, families and communities. Most people are familiar with what a nurse in the hospital does, but there are many other areas of nursing. The nurses at the health department illustrate the diversity in nursing. They promote healthy communities and prevent disease and disabilities of county residents.

Health department nurses are community or public health nurses. Community health nursing has been around since the early days in nursing. Nursing started in hospitals, but it soon became necessary to quarantine patients in their homes because of contagious diseases. Nurses then went into homes, both examining the patients and teaching the family how to take care of them.

Dr. Sue Raver, health officer, and Carole Kenny, nursing director, provide oversight and direction of 99 nurses to ensure quality care and community service. These nurses provide a wide range of services, which illustrate the uses of their skills in health teaching, prevention and advocacy in the care of the patients and communities. The programs cover all ages and wide- ranging needs.

Nurses serve in many different positions throughout the health department.

School nurses administer medications and medical treatments, evaluate and monitor communicable diseases, provide health counseling and teaching for chronic illness, provide nutrition teaching, teach disease prevention and healthy lifestyles, and provide referrals as appropriate.

The health department also gives flu shots every year at the flu clinics. This has helped to prevent a widespread epidemic.

Other programs that target protecting and preventing illness are multipurpose clinics, lead poisoning and prevention services, communicable disease services, sexually transmitted disease services and overseas travel.

Promotion and prevention are exemplified by the health department's cancer screening programs - breast and cervical cancer screening and colorectal cancer control . Screening can catch cancer or precancerous conditions in the early stages or even prevent cancer. Nurses provide management, guidance and health education as the patient goes through the screening process.

Healthy Start is another program that focuses on promotion and prevention. The nurses provide services to high-risk pregnant women by giving early prenatal care and providing education on how to have a healthy pregnancy and healthy baby.

The communicable disease division works in collaboration with physicians, laboratories and health care institutions to provide timely disease reporting and investigation for communicable diseases.

In the behavioral health area, nurses provide care to addicted teens in the Jackson Unit, and to adults suffering the devastating effects of alcoholism in the Massie Unit. Nurses in the Mental Health Unit provide individual supportive counseling, therapeutic injections, case management, monitor blood work and report the patient's progress to the psychiatrist.

The Mobile Treatment Unit nurses provide this same type of care to patients at home. Patients who would otherwise be institutionalized can now stay at home with care from the Outpatient Mental Health Clinic. In other cases, the patient can be freed from an addiction through treatment in one of the units.

The Office of Public Health Preparedness nurse educates and trains individuals to become more prepared for a pandemic or catastrophic event.

These examples are only a small portion of the 24 separate programs that illustrate the diversity and definition of nursing. By using their skills, nurses promote healthy communities and help to prevent disease and disabilities of the citizens of Allegany County.