Nurse Joanna Rose-Wright was awarded the Eloise Reid Award for Nursing Excellence during the launch of this year’s annual Cayman Islands Nurses Association conference.
Ms Rose-Wright, a public health nurse and school health coordinator, was chosen from among nine nurses nominated for the award by their peers.
Nurses Jolene Toney and Olga Robb-Wright finished second and third, respectively.
Ms Rose-Wright said she was “humbled and grateful” for the award.
“Nursing is really my passion,” she told an audience of nurses 7 May during the awards ceremony at the Governor’s Lawn at the Westin Seven Mile Beach Spa & Resort in Grand Cayman. “I was a nurse before I went to nursing school. From the day I passed human and social biology, I pronounced myself a nurse and did not even apply to nursing school, but I was a nurse from that time.
“I’m a nurse at heart,” she added. “I love nursing. I see myself in the future as a nursing consultant, doing something in nursing until I can‘t do it anymore.”
She thanked her colleagues, especially the school and public health nurses with whom she works closely.
She also commended Ms Reid for her service to nursing over the years. Ms Reid, a 31-year healthcare industry veteran, is the former chief nursing officer and former CEO of the Health Services Authority.
Ms Reid, who was a member of the panel that chose this year’s winner, in her address at the ceremony, said: “This is a time that we set aside to recognise the hard work that nurses do in our community and in our hospitals. This is the night for you, nurses. It’s also a night for us to recognise those individuals who have gone above their call of duty and practise excellence in nursing. They have been recommended by their colleagues as practising excellence in nursing.”
She added that the nominees for this year’s award were among the best she had encountered. “It was so difficult for the panel to make a decision… Nursing is in good hands. I was so proud interviewing them and hearing their philosophy, reading what the nominees had done since they’ve been in the service. It just warmed my heart,” she said.
This is the sixth year the award has been offered.