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There is no good way to tell a woman that Connie Wright,
RN, is going to be her nurse because it means that something
has gone wrong-sometimes terribly wrong-with her pregnancy.
Under Wright's care, though, in a special 13-bed unit
of Tacoma (Wash.) General Hospital, miracles are born
to high-risk obstetrical patients. Some patients are
critically ill with diabetes or hypertension; others
have preterm labor or ruptured membranes early in their
pregnancy.
In one case, it was so early that physicians gave the
baby virtually no chance. That mother was hospitalized
in the Trendelenburg position at 17 weeks, praying that
her fluid would reaccumulate. The baby was delivered
at 28 or 29 weeks. "We call her our miracle baby,"
Wright said.
This is one of dozens of success stories that Wright
and her colleagues share in snapshots on a bulletin
board to encourage patients and maintain staff morale.
Wright began her career as a psychiatric nurse but
studied obstetrics with the Army at Fort Lewis, Wash.,
and soon afterward adopted women's health as her specialty.
"I can't see myself ever getting totally away
from OB, but I think about things that are physically
less demanding, as all of us aging nurses are doing,"
she said.
Wright said she and her colleagues recently were talking
about the nursing shortage and the headlines it makes.
"Everybody is talking about money as the issue.
It has nothing to do with money. It's staffing,"
she said.
"You couldn't offer me $100,000 a year to go work
on a med/surg floor with staffing the way it is. It
boils down to being physically and emotionally exhausted
from the hard work and not being able to take care of
patients. We don't want more money, we want help."
At 55, Wright said she is excited to be studying for
certification as a sexual assault nurse examiner, a
fast-growing specialty that will keep her close to women's
health as she nears retirement.
High-risk obstetrical patients come to Tacoma General
from Seattle, south nearly to Portland, Ore., and the
Pacific Ocean to the Cascade Mountains.
Almost without exception, they are ill-prepared for
weeks in a hospital, Wright said. There is financial
hardship, being separated from other children and a
peculiar combination of boredom and fear.
"They'll have days and days of incredible boredom
sitting in bed, just nesting, waiting until it's safe
to have their baby. And they have that daily, almost
hourly, fear or expectation that something is going
to go terribly wrong with their baby," she said.
Wright and the other RNs, usually two per shift as
well as an LPN and ancillary staff for six to eight
patients, fight anxiety with education: written material,
videos and talking. "We spend 24 hours a day with
them talking about their diagnoses and what's going
on. We're very good," she said.
Wright said former patients, including the one with
the "miracle baby," often return to visit.
"We have a patient right now who's going to be
one of those memorable patients," she said. The
woman is 41 years old and unexpectedly pregnant with
her first child after being married for 21 years. She
had a mastectomy two years ago as treatment for breast
cancer and underwent chemotherapy and radiation. She
was admitted to the unit at 23 weeks with ruptured membranes.
"She's just one of those people who's very compliant
with everything we ask of her, and is willing to do
anything it takes to keep this baby," Wright said.
"Statistically, she's going to be OK."
Time not only is on the side of the pregnant women,
but it also works for Wright and the other RNs in forging
relationships.
"The other kind of patients that we get a lot
of good feelings about are the patients who come in
and nobody likes, that everybody goes, 'Oh no, a druggie
or a homeless person' or something like that,"
Wright said.
"They come in and they're filthy and ugly and
they treat us ugly. But within a matter of days, they
turn around and see that we treat them respectfully
and that we really care about them and the health of
their baby.
"A lot of them will come back and tell us how much
it meant to get the treatment," she said.
Contact
Phil McPeck at getpjm@aol.com.
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