Leader of visiting nurse agency realizes time has come to retire

Mary Lenzini has been president of VNA for more than 20 years

New London — At some point, Mary Lenzini had to concede she would never get to the end of her “to do” list.

“I wanted everything to be in place and perfect before I turned it over to the next person,” Lenzini, the longtime president of the Visiting Nurse Association of Southeastern Connecticut, said Monday. “But that never happens. … I think this is a good, strong agency, and it’s going to continue.”

Lenzini, 72, will retire at the end of the year, Lawrence + Memorial Hospital announced in a news release.

In a phone interview, Lenzini said she met around the first of the year with Patrick Green, the L+M president and chief executive officer, to discuss her stepping down. At the time, she had no inkling a novel coronavirus pandemic would dominate much of the last year of her career.

“Looking back on 39 years in health care administration in southeastern Connecticut, it’s not like anything I ever expected,” Lenzini said. “In this field, you do all sorts of planning for pandemics and hurri

canes and everything else, but implementing a plan is something else. The last few months have been quite interesting.”

Lenzini leads the VNA’s home health care, school health and community services divisions, which serve thousands of people throughout the region, including new mothers, the elderly and the homeless. She oversees a staff of more than 240, including about 100 registered nurses; school nurses; home health aides; and physical, occupational and speech therapists.

Amid the pandemic, some visiting nurses have complained that inadequate supplies of personal protective equipment, or PPE, have endangered those treating patients with COVID-19, the coronavirus disease. The reusing of N95 respirator masks has been a particular concern.

“I do understand what staff nurses are saying,” Lenzini said. “If I look back on my career and how I was trained to use equipment, it’s different now. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and DPH (state Department of Public Health) have considered what’s needed and made changes in the protocols. If you have an endless supply, you’re not going to look at whether you should wear a mask more than once. But if your supply’s not endless, you do.”

“We don’t have an endless supply, and we are using the modifications that CDC has recommended,” she said. “We’ve never run out of equipment.”

Martha Marx, vice president of the union that represents visiting nurses, credited Lenzini with working closely with union leadership to address the nurses’ concerns.

“Our dissatisfaction has been with upper management,” Marx said.

The VNA has treated as many as a dozen COVID-19 patients at one time and currently is treating seven, Lenzini said. In most cases, they’ve been transferred to the VNA’s care after being discharged from hospitals or nursing homes and have not been gravely ill, she said. Three VNA staff have tested positive for the disease and two others who exhibited symptoms are believed to have had it despite testing negative.

VNA nurses recently have taken to wearing face shields.

Lenzini, who was named the 2017 Citizen of the Year by the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut, has had a more than 50-year career in health care. Born and raised in southern Illinois, she entered the Navy Nurse Corps in 1968 after finishing nursing school. She was commissioned as a Navy ensign, and, after attending Officer Training Command, was stationed at the National Navy Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

While there, during the Vietnam War, Lenzini was placed in charge of an orthopedic ward caring for wounded Marines.

After her tour of duty, she married a Navy Medical Service Corps officer and moved twice before settling in eastern

Connecticut. Having earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing, she went to work for the Groton Public Health Nursing Service. Six years later, after obtaining a master’s degree in gerontology, she was hired as the first supervisor of the East Lyme chapter of the Visiting

Nurse Association.

When a number of VNA chapters merged in 1996, Lenzini was named the first president of the newly formed VNA of Southeastern Connecticut.

“Mary has dedicated her life’s work to caring for others and in doing so she has enriched our families and our communities,” said Green, the L+M president. “She has been a remarkable leader and her commitment and engagement have made a profound difference that will have a lasting impact on us all.”