Black Immigrant Daily News
The inaugural Staff Appreciation Day and Health and Wellness Fair to celebrate staff of the Geriatric Hospital at Beckles Road, St Michael is a smashing success.
You mean to tell me we gotta wait a year for another one of these?
Staff at all levels had nothing but praise for the day’s proceedings today, Thursday, March 30, 2023. And on being informed that today was a hit, Hospital Manager Heather Payne-Drakes agreed with the idea that more of these activities for staff can be explored.
Speaking to Loop News, Kenneth Green who has worked at the Hospital for some 25 years, said, “I like this! I wish it was tomorrow again. I enjoyed this. We need more of this. This bring the workers a little closer.” Looking over at his colleagues participating in the soca exercise, led by Bajan Fusion Cecilia Collymore, Green said, “You mean to tell me we gotta wait a year for another one of these? This should be at least once a month. I really enjoyed today.”
Payne-Drakes said, “We can look into doing that.”
I think that this appreciation for the healthcare workers is a very good idea
Meanwhile, on a grander scale, Principal Nursing Officer (Ag.) Sonia Lovell said she too hopes that this initiative grows from strength to strength.
“I think that this appreciation for the healthcare workers is a very good idea, and I do embrace it, because sometimes we tend to work, work all the time and we tend to forget ourselves. So this is a very motivation for our staff. Trust that it won’t be the first and last time.”
Another staff member who preferred to speak anonymously jokingly said, “Working here you really can get hypertension so this really relieved our stress.
“But seriously, we could do with more of these.”
Organiser and Dietician Stacia Whittaker said that the whole idea for today’s event came out of March being National Nutrition Month and the theme for the month is ‘Creating Healthy Environments’.
Excited about the response from staff members, Whittaker told Loop, “We thought of instead of just creating a healthy environment, let’s create a healthy environment in general and then we thought of let’s take care of the caregiver because by extension, once the caregiver is taken care of, obviously, who they are caring for should be better taken care of.
“So we wanted to first give staff the opportunity for activity like this because we know it would benefit our residents here at the Geriatric Hospital. It’s kinda the first of its kind so we are hoping that we can do it again next year bigger.”
NewsAmericasNow.com
