3 Griffin nurses honored for exceptional caring, service
DERBY — Throughout the COVID- 19 pandemic, there have been days when Angela Desjardins finished her shift as a nurse at Griffin Hospital feeling helpless and desolate.
“This year has been so trying and rough,” said Desjardins, who lives in Watertown. “There are so many shifts when we leave feeling defeated, like what we do isn’t enough.”
So she said she was incredibly moved when she and two of her colleagues — nurses Joshua Ritton of Seymour and Yangchen Dhondup of Naugatuck — won a DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses late last month.
The award is a program of the DAISY Foundation, a national not- for- profit that formed in November 1999 by the family of J. Patrick Barnes who died at age 33 of complications of Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura.
Griffin launched its DAISY awards in October, and this was the first batch of winners. There will be three winners selected quarterly.
Two nurses at Griffin Hospital — Caitlyn Gaetani and Patricia Coffey — had been working to bring the DAISY to Griffin even before the pandemic. But Coffey said the pandemic and the demands it placed on nurses made the recognition all the more important.
“A lot of what nursing is and nursing does was brought to light because of this pandemic,” Coffey said. “People might not have known about it before.”
Hospitals throughout the country give DAISY awards to their nursing staffs to recognize exceptional care. Candidates can be nominated by patients, family or staff.
Desjardins was nominated by the wife of a patient who praised her as a “caring and compassionate nurse” in her nomination letter.
“We were limited in
( the) way of visitation access due to COVID- 19 regulations and even with this, we never felt out of the loop in his care,” the woman wrote in her letter. “We knew that he was in good hands as long as Angela was his nurse.”
For Desjardins, the award came at a crucial time. She works in critical care, and throughout the pandemic, many of the patients she’s cared for have faced the end of their lives without their loved ones by their side. Often, Desjardins is the one providing them with an iPad so their families can FaceTime with them, or she’s giving them some muchneeded human contact.
“I would sit with my patients and hold their hands just so they knew somebody was there caring for them,” she said.
Desjardins said she often found it hard to believe that what she did mattered. The DAISY changed that.
“It kind of opened my eyes to no matter how I feel when I leave, that I really do make a difference in the end,” she said.
Of the other two win
Hospitals throughout the country give DAISY awards to their nursing staffs to recognize exceptional care. Candidates can be nominated by patients, family or staff.
ners, one, Ritton, a nurse on the inpatient floors, was nominated by a patient for his kindness to those he cares for.
“There was a gentleman in the room next to mine who was very confused as to where he was and why he was there,” the nomination read. “I could hear Josh speaking with him, being very considerate of the man’s confusion.”
Dhondup, an emergency department nurse and the third winner, was nominated by a colleague who said she is “always positive and helpful to everyone in the Emergency Department ... There is not a kinder, gentler or more genuine person than Yangchen.”
Coffey and Gaetani said nurses can be nominated at any time. Desjardins said she’s pleased to see the awards continue, and looks forward to nominating and honoring her colleagues as time moves ahead.
“Even though there’s so much negativity around us, this gave me a positive outlook,” she said.
To nominate a Griffin Hospital nurse for a DAISY award, visit griffinhealth. org/ daisy.