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NIVnews
Caring For CaregiversNurses House Offers Assistance Through Tough Financial Times
BY DOUG CHILDERS
A back injury she had recently suffered would end her career as a registered nurse, a surgeon told her. Devastated, she quit her job as director of nurses at an area nursing home.
Without an income, she soon found herself in fi nancial trouble. Then, on the verge of losing her home, she read in the American Journal of Nursing about Nurses House.
The New York-based nonprofit organization offered short-term financial help to registered nurses like her, she read. Intrigued, she called the organization and asked if she would qualify for assistance.
Encouraged by the compassion she heard in the representative's voice, she filled out an application. And she received a grant that enabled her to pay her mortgage and save her home.
Now 72 and living in Roanoke, Greenberg has turned to Nurses House several times for support, most recently for a $500 emergency grant to repair her car.
"Nurses House helped me to move forward," Greenberg says. "And they still do."
Greenberg is one of thousands of registered nurses who have received fi nancial support from Nurses House since its creation. Last year, the organization gave more than $142,000 to 103 registered nurses.
Through Aug. 12 this year, it had given 55 registered nurses more than $79,000. It has helped nurses in all 50 states, including 34 from Virginia, in the last 13 years. The money for the grants comes from donations and fundraisers. These determine how much the organization is able to give. Each year, it receives about 130 requests for help and typically assists about 100 nurses.
"If a nurse is in incredible debt - say, $32,000 - Nurses House can't help because it doesn't have that much money to give out," says Susan Fraley, RN, the organization's executive director.
While a council evaluates applications, Fraley has the authority to issue an emergency grant to a nurse facing a dire problem.
Medical issues and unexpected financial setbacks such as the ones Greenberg experienced drive many nurses to the nonprofit organization. Consider the Midwest couple who found themselves suddenly facing medical and financial problems. First, the woman, a registered nurse, learned she had cancer. Then floods hit the Midwest and destroyed her husband's livestock. The rising waters also ruined his cornfields.
Without crop insurance, they lost his income and teetered on the edge of fi nancial collapse. A grant from Nurses House allowed the family to face cancer treatments, without worrying about money as well. "It's going to be awhile until he gets back on his feet, but they're recovering," Fraley says. "And the prognosis is good for her, too."
Serious medical issues and accidents are common among the organization's grant recipients. But the reasons for applying for aid have varied across the decades. Until 1952, Nurses House offered nurses a place to rest and recover on Long Island, made possible by a 1922 bequest from Emily Bourne, who was not a nurse but a friend of nurses. Initially, many nurses came to rest from their troubling experiences in World War I. Others came to recover from tuberculosis.
As needs changed, the organization's focus shifted, too. In 1952, Nurses House began offering nurses fi nancial support, driven in part by their profession's low salaries and scarcity of pensions.
In the 1970s, when recreational drug use climbed in the general population, Nurses House saw an increase in the number of nurses seeking help because of addictions. In the 1980s, the number of nurses applying for help because of back injuries increased. Now, the organization is seeing an increase in workplace violence, especially in emergency rooms and psychiatric facilities, Fraley says.
The organization also has helped nurses hit by some of the biggest disasters the nation has faced in the last decade, including Hurricane Katrina and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "We helped one nurse who lost her husband and a brother in 9/11," Fraley says. Nurses House also provided help to families of nurses killed in the attacks.
The current economic downturn has been especially hard on nonprofits, which often rely on donations. Nurses House is no exception.
"We weren't as adversely affected as some charities were, but our donations were down," Fraley says, noting that they're slowly starting to increase now. "If anybody wants to have a bake sale, just contact us," she adds, with a laugh.
For more information about Nurses House, visit www.nurseshouse.org.
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