Sidra Medicine felicitates nursing workforce

Sidra Medicine hosted celebrations from May 5-12 to honour and thank its nurses for their hard work, compassion and skills. The celebrations were held in conjunction with two international observances: International Day of the Midwife and International Nursing Day that are annually celebrated on May 5 and 12, respectively.The celebrations included a creative showcase; video competitions; motivational talks and the organisation’s annual Daisy Leader and Team Awards. This year’s Daisy Awards were given to nurse leader Carmel Cullen, manager of the Emergency Department and the team award was presented to the General Paediatrics Unit from the Sidra Medicine Outpatient Clinic. The awardees were recognised for their exceptional commitment to caring for patients and families. The Daisy Award was established by the Daisy Foundation, set up in the US by the family of J Patrick Barnes, who died in 1999 from an auto-immune disease. Daisy is an acronym for Diseases Attacking the Immune System. The care that Patrick and his family received from nurses during his hospitalisation inspired a unique means of thanking nurses who have gone above and beyond their daily routine to ensure patients receive exceptional care. In 2014, Sidra Medicine was the first healthcare organisation to launch the award in the region.Sidra Medicine also officially welcomed Julie Smith as its new chief nursing officer. Smith, who has over 30 years of experience in the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, joined Sidra Medicine from University Hospitals of Leicester, where she was the chief nurse. Smith has held a number of regional and national roles in the UK and has a background that spans multi-site district general hospitals as well as large teaching hospitals. She also worked in the NHS Modernisation Agency and the UK Department of Health focusing on quality improvement and transformation of the delivery of clinical services. In her new role at Sidra Medicine, Smith will be leading efforts to deliver high quality patient care by continuing to build and support a qualified and committed workforce. The celebrations at Sidra Medicine are the latest in a long list of initiatives by the Qatar Foundation healthcare organisation, aimed at fostering a sustainable nursing and midwifery workforce in Qatar and profiling nursing as a career of choice. Such initiatives include working with the University of Calgary in Qatar (UC-Q) to sponsor Qatari students as part of the Bedayati Programme. The one-year new graduate nurse programme is designed to attract national nurses to Sidra Medicine and support their transition into the industry.