Silver Hill Hospital Hosts Nurses for Nurses Meetings

Connecticut Nursing News, Dec 2004-Feb 2005 by Maher, Mimi Wright

"Some of my best friends are nurses," you're likely to note after years in the profession. It's not unusual to look around and see that your deepest friendships have developed with other nurses. You became engaged and married during the same time frame, had children within a year of one another and worked side by side on the same unit for years.

Now, one of your best friends is in crisis. She's experiencing a number of relationship difficulties and having problems at work. Each time you see your friend she looks strange. Her eyes are glistening, her face is red and her speech I is slurred. Your first instinct is to protect her, shelter her from the harm she is creating for herself. You discuss it with all her other friends who are also (no surprise) nursing colleagues. You all feel the over powering need to protect your friend. You want to protect her from harming a patient, embarrassing herself professionally, and losing her job.

If you lived in Fairfield County and were in this situation, you didn't have many options for your friend. Now you will have a new choice. Silver Hill Hospital is sponsoring a Nurses for Nurses meeting at the Jurgenson Center every Saturday at 5 pm. Active since 1984, Nurses for Nurses is a peer supper group for nurses who are in recovery.

If you've been confronted by your employer or drug control, been terminated for impaired practice, or suspect that you have a problem with drugs or alcohol, contact Nurses for Nurses. The number is (203) 238-1207 Ext 21. The voice mail is confidential.

Silver Hill Hospital, a private not-forprofit hospital, will be the site for Nurses for Nurses meetings in New Canaan, Connecticut. Nurses anywhere in the addictive process continuum are invited to participate in the meetings on Saturdays at 5 p.m.

Mimi Wright Maher, RN, MPH, MSN