Mercy Regional Medical Center celebrates National Nurse’s Week

Nursing staff at Acadian Medical Center were treated to breakfast Wednesday as part of National Nurses Week.
Mercy Regional Medical Center CEO Scott Smith said, “We are happy to celebrate Nurses Week. We have many activities planned for our nurses this week. Our nurses are critical to us here at Mercy Regional Medical Center, and they deliver the highest level of care possible to our patients.
“We are proud to celebrate this time with them and show how appreciative we are of the work they do, day in, day out, 24/7.”
According to the American Nursing Association’s website, National Nurses Week begins each year on May 6 and ends on May 12, Florence Nightingale’s birthday.
A breakfast also was held at Mercy Regional Medical Center campus in Ville Platte.
Many of the nurses stopping by the breakfast were with coming on shift or just finishing up a shift, and some of them also stopped by a skills fair hosted in conjunction with the breakfast.
Rita Fay Broussard, a retired nurse who helps at the hospital, was one of many nurses at the breakfast.
“I enjoy meeting patients and taking care of them,” Broussard said. “It’s nice to meet new people and help them.”
Broussard was director of nursing at the hospital in Church Point where she worked for 30 years before coming to Acadian Medical Center. She worked in medical surgery and case management as a nurse.
Jennifer Stagg is a nurse in the nursery of Acadian Medical Center.
“It’s a reward, seeing a patient transform before your eyes, going from being sick to being better,” Stagg said. “With my job, I get to see the awesomeness of new life coming into the world and help new moms with their babies. It’s the miracle of life.”
Stagg has been a nurse for 16 years, and she started her nursing career in a nursing home.
“I went from one end of the spectrum to the other, from nursing homes to babies,” she said. “I was there when people left their lives, and now I’m there when they come into their lives. It’s humbling.”
Nurse Bryan Larriviere mainly works in the Intensive Care Unit at Acadian Medical Center, and has been a nurse for 15 years.
“I like helping other people,” he said. “It’s a rewarding job. I’ve worked all over — ICU, med surge and as a psych nurse, and I started at the emergency room in the Crowley hospital.”