Earlier this week we sent you an email that marked Public Service Appreciation Week. Today is nurses appreciation day; in a time when our nurses, CAN, activity therapists and all healthcare workers have put themselves on the frontlines and directly in the face of a global pandemic, we wanted to take some time to thank our Nurses across Delaware. In Delaware we represent nurses at most of the State Hospital facilities across the state, at the Delaware Veterans Home, at our corrections facilities, residential treatment facilities for kids, and public health community nurses. We are proud of the work they continue to do to around the state keeping our most vulnerable populations safe. Our nurses are on the frontlines every day, on COVID Units putting their own health at risk in order to ensure that Delaware's sickest and most susceptible to this virus have a caring face to see them through their most trying times.
But when there isn't a Global Pandemic, and COVID units don't exist, our Nurses are continuing to take care of Delaware families. They are taking care of inmates at our corrections facilities. They are training staff at one of our state residential treatment centers on how to pass medication to teenagers who are there for behavioral health. They are caring for our veterans and their families at the only state run Veterans Home in Delaware. Our nurses are serving at state hospitals like the Psychiatric Hospital in New Castle and Governor Bacon in Delaware City, taking care of people, when their families cannot. Our nurses are serving in the community as community nurses, helping with the opioid epidemic that has gripped Delaware or in health clinics and state service centers keeping Delaware Families safe and healthy in their time of need (global pandemic or not).

We owe a debt of gratitude to the nurses who serve on the frontlines every day—in ordinary times and now in these unprecedented times! We are proud of the work they continue to do and the service they are giving to the state of Delaware, without asking for anything in return. We will continue to stand beside them ensuring their health and safety are being protected and while our gratitude will never be enough, it is start!