In appreciation of Nursing Week and Canada’s Nurse Practitioners, Registered Nurses and Registered Practical Nurses, we visited a Toronto hospital to celebrate #YESThisisNursing with breakfast.

Nurses are the backbone of the Canadian health care system. They provide frontline care for all those who visit doctors’ offices and hospitals.

For the elderly woman who needs a warm blanket at 3 a.m. because it’s too chilly, it is a nurse that answers her call bell. For the young father who is holding his newborn for the very first time, it’s a nurse who shows him how to tenderly bathe his baby.
Nursing is both a tough and rewarding profession – long twelve-hour shifts on your feet, with overtime creating missed family events, just so someone is present during code  whites or code blues.

They are the daily touch point, teach patients new routines and ensure everyone is informed so the best quality of care is received. They are our immune health warriors, who maintain a healthy immune system so they can keep doing their job, informing us on how to stay healthy. They monitor our progress daily so that they can raise pressing concerns during interdisciplinary meetings with the rest of the health care team. But above all, they provide the empathy and care we need to heal and help us celebrate happy moments. So not just for Nursing Week but for every week, we want to thank our nurses for both improving and advancing the health of Canadians across the country.