Oral Testimony of Melissa Velazquez, RN Before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce On the Nursing Shortage September 25, 2001

Good morning, everyone. My name is Melissa Velazquez, and I'm a registered nurse in the Burn Intensive Care Unit at the Washington Hospital Center. Thank you for offering this tremendous opportunity to speak to you today.

The spirit that we have seen across the nation has been nothing less than astounding. The willingness of Americans to take care of their families, their friends, their neighbors, communities and ultimately their nation is overwhelming. It is something that you see and feel everywhere you go. If there is one thought that I absolutely want you to take home today, it is that spirit has been alive, well and thriving in the profession of nursing since its inception. Not only in the Burn Intensive Care Unit, where we have been given the bittersweet privilege to care for the men and women injured at the Pentagon, but in hundreds of clinical settings all over this country, from the home to the hospital, nurses give 110% of themselves everyday they walk through the doors of their facilities.

As the events of that day evolved, my priorities changed. I collected my daughter from school, got home safe and made the phone calls necessary to make sure my family was okay. I called my head nurse and she asked if I could come in that night. Of course, the answer was yes.

In all honesty I was expecting absolute mayhem. The only other previous experience I had remotely similar was Memorial Day two years ago. Five DC firefighters were injured in a house fire, three of which lost their lives. The flurry of activity that night was unlike any other. But much to the credit of all that were involved that day of the attack, when I arrived that evening, seven of the eight burn victims from the Pentagon were settled in. To lend some perspective to that, for just one large burn victim it takes one doctor, one respiratory therapist and two to three nurses - not to mention ancillary support from other departments (lab, pharmacy, radiology) - a minimum of two to four hours to settle a patient in and that's if nothing goes wrong. The members of the burn team that were there that day did it seven times over in a phenomenal amount of time.

How is that possible? WHC is experiencing the same nursing shortage the rest of the country is. Where did the extra nurses come from?

Over the last year, the Burn ICU lost more than half of their staff to different education and employment opportunities. They weren't satisfied that the necessary changes in the work environment were being made. Why do I mention this? Because those same nurses that left were some of the same nurses that you saw on the unit the day of the attack and in the weeks following. Why? Because we're nurses, that's what we do. In a time of need, we put away any differences we have and do the task at hand. Their example speaks volumes to the spirit of the nursing profession.

The eighth burn victim hadn't arrived yet. This was to be my patient, a lieutenant in the United States Navy. Before I go on, be assured that I spoke with the lieutenant, his wife and his mother and gained their permission to talk about him today. Although I will not discuss any of his injuries, there are a few things that stand out in my mind. His wife arrived on the first night and spoke of her love for him and cried; then she pulled herself together because her husband needed her.

Severe burn victims experience tremendous swelling, and the lieutenant's eyes were swollen shut. On the second night, I was applying ointment to his eyes and he opened them on his own. I went running out to call his wife to come in to see him. I said to the lieutenant, "Your wife is here; show her what you can do!"

Last weekend, I was with him when he sat in a chair and when he walked on his own to the tank for changing his dressing.

As a nurse I have the honor of sharing these moments with the lieutenant and his family. These are the singular moments that make RNs' hearts sing. As long as these moment outweigh the decline of the working environment, I'll keep coming back.