The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

THE first winner of the PHA Unsung Heroes Award is veteran nurse Patricia Laing, who health officials praised yesterday as a stellar practitioner for her years of committed and noteworthy excellence.

Nurse Laing was presented with the award for January by Public Hospitals Authority (PHA) Managing Director Herbert Brown, who described her as “one of our bright lights”. Robert Dupuch Carron, president of the Tribune Media Group, and his wife Elizabeth, co-founders of the Aidan Roger Carron Foundation, were on hand for the presentation as organisation partners with the PHA in a public-private partnership which aims to improve paediatric health care in the Bahamas.

Nurse Laing, who began her nursing career in 1972, now operates as Patient Relations Supervisor in the Accident and Emergency Department at the Princess Margaret Hospital. Well versed in nursing, she claimed that the approach she takes to her post is and has always been driven by the idea that everyone deserves to have the best day possible when in her presence.

She told The Tribune that she has always strived to bring comfort to those surrounded by illness and despair.

“It is the smile,” she said. “I have always wanted people to feel good when all signs have pointed to them or given them a reason to feel otherwise. That is why I have always made it a point to share hugs, feel you, touch you, let you know in your moment of sadness or grief that someone is there for you.

“I never viewed my position as a job or work. It has always been about making the lives of those I come into contact with better.”

Nurse Laing said modestly that the award confirms a belief that she has always held that “a bright smile and warm hug can make the difference”.

“It is how you answer the phone, open the door, greet someone,” she said. “Those were my rewards, if I am allowed to say that. Now while this award is special and surprising, it lends to the fact that what I do does mean something to the people that come in contact with me.”

The PHA Unsung Heroes Award is a monthly recognition, given to employees in the Public Hospital Authority who have made extended and noteworthy contributions to the health services industry in the Bahamas. It carries a cash prize, dinner for two, a framed certificate and a bespoke recognition pin. An annual winner, selected from the monthly champions, will be announced and honoured at a gala dinner at the end of the year.

Presenting Nurse Laing with the inaugural award Mr Brown said she personified the indelible attitude toward patient care and health services that he thought ought to be the norm delivered in the Bahamas. He said at the heart of what officials attempt to deliver across public institutions is the common thread of “working together for the best quality healthcare”; asserting that Nurse Laing has adopted that principle as a personal mandate.

“Nurse Patricia Laing is one of our bright lights in the Public Hospitals Authority,” Mr Brown said. “As the Patient Relations Supervisor in the Accident and Emergency Department at the Princess Margaret Hospital, Nurse Laing is often a first point of contact for many of our patients and their families. Her reputation in this role has been nothing short of stellar. She continues to go above and beyond each and every day, and many of our commendations have one single thread: ‘Nurse Laing made me feel like I was the most important person in the hospital’.

“When ‘service above self’ touches our clients in this way then we call it heroic. Nurse Patricia Laing is most certainly a hero.”

The Unsung Heroes Awards are open to employees of the PHA, with nominations now open for February.