Healthy Connections
PrintA guide to better health from Backus
August 2010
Backus nurse receives statewide award
Nity Oris, RN, a 40-year veteran of Backus, was named a “Healthcare Hero” by the Connecticut Hospital Association.
Each year at its annual meeting, the Connecticut Hospital Association nominates 10 “Healthcare Heroes” for their work improving the health of communities.
On Wednesday June 30, the only healthcare worker in New London and Windham coun- ties to receive the award was longtime Backus Hospital nursing supervisor Nity Oris, RN, who has been at Backus for 40 years.
Here is the essay submitted by Shawn Mawhiney, Director of Communications at Backus Hospital, nominating her:
Nity Oris is a gardener. This common pas- sion, among others, has led to extraordinary life-saving efforts in eastern Connecticut and especially abroad — long before recent humanitarian efforts in places like Haiti and other disaster-ridden locations.
Ms. Oris, a nurse at Backus Hospital for the past 40 years, has done everything from create gardens that feed malnourished children to building a library in her Philippine homeland since coming to America as an exchange student in 1967.
Ms. Oris has spent her career helping patients and underprivileged people from eastern Connecticut to southeast Asia.
Since coming to eastern Connecticut in 1967, she created a Foundation to send Philippine children to college, starting with one student who graduated from nursing school. Five others have followed, and she solicited American friends to sponsor three others.
In 2000, she “adopted” the Sagasa Elementary School in Bago City, Negros Occidental, with help from her colleagues at Backus, her Ledyard church and others, she sponsored a program to provide vitamins and dried milk to thousands of malnourished children, who had to be de-wormed before they were put in the program. Her sister, who lives in the Philippines, supervised the stirring of the milk. She returns each year to see the children grow healthier — a sight she finds immensely gratifying.
She followed this endeavor in 2005 by fund- raising and donating $36,000 to build a library near the Sagasa School she had adopted. This is hardly surprising, considering she came from a family of educators. The school was named in honor of her parents, both teachers, who before they passed away taught her that “the most important things in life are sharing, caring, loving and giving.” The Demetrio and Juana Valenzuela Public Library and Recreation Center isn’t extravagant — in fact, it has only two large rooms — but it is equipped with amenities not usually avail- able in her homeland, including a computer, printer and copy machine donated by her colleagues. Oris has followed up by sending boxes of books and eyeglasses on a regular basis. She packs these items between layers of clothes for the poor farming families.
Her humanitarian efforts do not end there. She has helped organize eyeglass clinics every year during her visits since 2005.
In 2008, she joined a group of doctors from Yale on a mission in her beloved homeland. Although she is not an operating nurse, she worked in the “recovery room” during the three-day project, as they operated on 59 people with burns and other injuries. There were children burned so badly they couldn’t walk, and their efforts led to many life-saving success stories.
And, yes, she has done her share in America — in the community and as a nurse. She donates to local soup kitchens, libraries and sponsors needy families during the holiday season. She won a Nightingale Award for her dedication to the nursing profession at Backus Hospital in 2006.
Ms. Oris says a simple proverb motivates her.
“When you are gone, people won’t remember that you drove a beautiful car or that you were very rich. They will remember only what kind of person you were,” Ms. Oris says. “And you don’t have to give back money — share your skills, read to children, volunteer, do whatever you can do to help.”