How have I been working as a black nurse during this pandemic, on the brink of (what seems to be a) modern day civil war? Washington D.C.

Veronique Taylor, 2017 grantee. Bachelor’s in nursing from Trinity Washington University. She is a front-line worker, as a nurse at Sibley Hospital in Washington DC during the pandemic.

“What a time to be alive! How have I been working as a black nurse during this pandemic, on the brink of what seems to be a modern day civil war? It’s been mentally draining and exhausting to say the least. I am tired. Hour by hour things change, there are meetings to be had and even fear as a nurse that I may be furloughed until the curve has flattened. 

Since the pandemic, I volunteered to be ‘deployed’ (this is how the hospital refers to it) indefinitely on an all COVID unit. Many nurses were terrified of the idea of being on an all COVID floor. I was not, I was concerned about job security. Not only my job, but I knew that the other nurses had to go home to families. It was just me and my puppy, so I did not mind volunteering for deployment. The purpose of the deployment was to protect our jobs as there was talk of my department going on diversion. They were already furloughing nurses more often than normal…”

To read Veronique’s full statement click here.