A registered nurse from Grey Bruce Health Services has been awarded for her dedication and compassion.
RN Ellie Neary was given recognition by the Ontario Nursing Now Awards for her hard work as the lead for the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program, as well as a nurse counsellor for victims of domestic and sexual assault.
The award was given during a Zoom meeting held Friday, to end National Nursing Week, which coincides with the birthday of Florence Nightingale on May 12th.
Neary has been a nurse for more than 36 years.
She was nominated by her teammate, RPN Courtney Young.
In the presentation for the award, Neary was also congratulated for collaboratively working with staff in the emergency department, as well as the ICU, labs, victims services, and the OPP to help provide better care for patients.
Neary thanked her coworkers and the organizations that they work with, including Violence Prevention Grey Bruce, the Human Trafficking Committee, the OPP, and Owen Sound Police, saying “We cannot provide a proper response to victims without a coordinated community response.”
She also had a heartfelt thank you to her family.
“I’d like to thank my family as well. They have been extremely supportive of me. My four grown children and four grandchildren have spent many family holidays waiting for me or holding off dinner for me, and they understand the importance of how that works.”
She also advocates for training opportunities so that every SANE nurse is prepared to maintain competency and build portfolios so they can effectively testify in court as a SANE nurse or expert witness.
Included in her acceptance speech, Neary shared her favourite quote from Florence Nightingale, saying: “‘As nurses, let us never consider ourselves finished. Nurses, we must be learning all of our lives.'”