Dear colleagues,
CNMO Alanna Geary with new nursing graduates Emily Mardiste and Lucy Mooney
This week I had the absolute pleasure to work beside some of my clinical colleagues from Community & Oral Health Services in the provision of COVID-19 vaccinations at the new Doomben Racecourse community clinic. What a wonderful example of the way our Metro North teams are provided a task and get on with making it operational and functional in a very short period of time. On Tuesday it was set up, compliance achieved and on Wednesday it was up and operational.
After a very slow morning while the message was getting out, the afternoon got busy and over 200 vaccinations were given. I am very proud to say that I was one of those vaccinators! I worked alongside the most wonderful team of nurses, pharmacists, administrative officers and operational staff who were shining examples of the Metro North values and the “can-do” attitude of our health service. The leadership of Community and Oral Health Services to lead this body of work was outstanding and a huge congratulations to all involved.
In addition, I would like to call out to the exceptional professionalism and ability of the new graduate nurses and midwives who have been so instrumental in the COVID 19 response in MN. We have seen new graduate nurses employed in a whole range of roles. While we have certainly taken the normal quota of graduates into our “usual” front line positions, we have also taken more than 150 to provide vaccinations, work in fever clinics, undertake fit testing, facilitate airport screening and to support hotel quarantine initiatives.
These graduates have embraced the opportunities and showed extraordinary aptitude, skill and expertise and with the support of our more experienced nursing and midwifery clinical staff have demonstrated that in Metro North we can always rise to the challenge. On Wednesday I had the absolute pleasure to work alongside three of these outstanding graduates. I am in awe! Thank you to all of our graduates for accepting the challenge, and thank you for choosing Metro North.
Regards,
Alanna