Memorial Hospital celebrates Neonatal Nurses Week

Memorial Hospital spotlights some special nurses who tend to the tiniest patients in the building.

Memorial Hospital is celebrating their nurses on National Neonatal Nurses Week for showing exceptional care to newborns for 25 years.

Nurse Tehra Garriga has been with the hospital for 15 years. She loves her job and is glad to be a part of the only neonatal intensive care unit on the Coast. “My favorite part is taking care of the little babies and watching them succeed, watching them learn how to breathe on their own, and teaching the parents to feed the babies and get ready for them to go on and watch them get to walk out the door eventually with their parent.”

The nurses says it is a bittersweet moment when they send babies home because they not only form a connection with the babies, but also with their families. NICU Nurse Jennifer Rutherford said, “We reach out through Facebook. We get to watch them grow and get older. We also have a clinic, they come back to make sure they are meeting milestones and develop mentally and if we need assistance. So, we get to see them until they are almost two years old.”

Families may not be aware that they have a choice to have their sick baby transported to Memorial Health System. “We have our own transport team. Take an ambulance. Go get the baby and take it back to our hospital.”

The NICU has healed more than 7,000 babies and counting.