Nursing Now Coffee Time
Nursing Studies students and alumni hosted a coffee rounds event on September 28th at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh to show support for nurses and the Nursing Now campaign. Nursing Now is a global campaign aimed to raise the profile of nursing and is based on the conclusions of the Triple Impact Report that suggests by supporting nursing not only will the health of the community improve but gender equity and economic conditions of the community will also benefit. This is the third event that University of Edinburgh Nursing Studies students have put on to support Nursing Now.
The format of the event was similar to those held in the past where we hand out coffees (and this time biscuits) to nurses on the wards and say thank you for your hard work. Again, a rewarding experience. The best part of the day was hearing whispers as I left the unit of nursing staff saying ‘that is so nice’. We could see the stress melt away from one nurse as we handed her a coffee and said ‘thank’ as she had had to make some difficult calls in the past days was under some pressure.
On this occasion we had the help of Anne Swanson, an exchange student at the University of Edinburgh from the United States. Anne offered the following reflection of the event:
My name is Anne, and I am a pre-medical student studying public health in the United States. I am taking classes at the University of Edinburgh this semester, and my main goal while in the United Kingdom is to gain a more global, comparative view of public health, healthcare, and medical practice. I was drawn to the Nursing Now program because I saw that it would provide an immersive experience in a local hospital while allowing me to give back to nurses in my new community. With Nursing Now, I helped deliver coffees to nurses in the wards of Royal Infirmary Edinburgh. This allowed me to see the inner workings of a hospital in the United Kingdom for the first time. It was interesting to hear from the nurses about the challenges they face. Some of these challenges included the constant pressure to discharge patients in order to make room for more, as well as overall shortages of beds and nursing staff. Nurses spend each day caring for others with empathy and dedication, and volunteering with Nursing Now is a great way to show nurses that the community cares for them, too!
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