Nurses excluded from PTSD bill ask, ‘If we’re not first responders, who is?’
Nurses excluded from PTSD bill ask, ‘If we’re not first responders, who is?’
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/nurses-excluded-from-ptsd-bill-ask-if-were-not-first-responders-who-is
After a shift at the hospital where she worked as a nurse in the labour and delivery unit, she would spend hours sobbing on the couch, haunted by images of dead babies.
Prince had worked as a nurse since 2002 in neonatal intensive units in seven hospitals in the United States and Ontario, and later in a labour and delivery unit in southwestern Ontario. Only a dozen years into a career she loved, she felt oppressed by the accumulation of death she had witnessed.
“I’ve always loved babies. But going into it, I didn’t realize how sad it would be,” she said.
By the end of the year, Prince could not even drive past the hospital. She was diagnosed with depression and elements of PTSD a few months later.