A Nurse’s Last Letter To Her Abuser
On August 7, 2023, in Dayton, Ohio, Tristin Kate Smith committed suicide!
The worst part of this story is that Tristin, a 28-year-old ER nurse, accused her abuser, healthcare, as the reason for taking her own life. She confided in detail in a note found on her computer by her father after her death about how she gave her heart, body, and mind to nursing because she wanted to help others and be a nurse forever.
But she had heard rumors about healthcare’s abusive past, about the compliments, the pizza, and the thank you letters. But when she became a nurse, she realized the truth: that healthcare did not support or care for its nurses. She heard the truth when being told about nurses getting hit by patients while emphasizing that she was not to defend herself but just to lay down or to put up her hands and wait for security.
This is absolutely heart wrenching! Nurses shouldn’t be abused. There should be safety protocols in place to prevent these types of situations which happen all too often.
Tristin had participated in a survey to improve satisfaction scores but instead of listening to the nurses’ resultant feedback, they were then given an online course and told to “just be friendlier.” Tristin wrote, “That’s when I began to understand your (healthcare’s) true cruelty and manipulation.”
Her computer note went on in detail about how healthcare does not protect nurses who are just doing their jobs from criminal prosecution. In fact, these nurses are thrown under the under the healthcare bus.
She then states about healthcare “you are a narcissist. I can see you for what you really are. You say you care, but you ignore us while we beg on our hands and knees. You tell us that we put up with so much. But when we dare to think we are finally going to get the love and support we deserve, we get a pizza party and free pens for the healthcare heroes.”
It saddens me to hear how true her words ring. The sad part is that this is not something new or even isolated.
When I was practicing in the hospital years ago, I would be given a holiday gift of a ham when they knew I was Jewish!
I have also heard about nurses being given rocks and were told to paint the rock with a note of gratitude for Nurses’ Week.
When you look at every hospital system, at least in my area, I see construction outside of it. The hospitals are reinvesting their profits into the building and structure rather than reinvesting in the staff that makes them profitable. When is this going to change?
My heart breaks for Tristin Kate Smith and what she endured. I wish she had received the mental health counseling she so badly needed. Perhaps emergency room nursing was not the right fit for her, but certainly there must be another place.
The risk of female suicide for nurses is twice the rate of the general female population. How many more nurses are we going to lose?
I would love to hear your comments below.
