Denecia Hodge has returned home to work as a nurse for the Princess Alexandria Hospital after graduating with a Bachelor of Science Degree in nursing at the University of the Virgin Island in St. Thomas. Denecia, now 25 years-old, specializes in taking care of premature babies, and, she has returned to Anguilla to uplift her community.
She said: “Anguilla is my home and my plan before I even graduated nursing school was to possibly gain experience either in St. Thomas, where I graduated, or in the United States, and then come back home to be able to give back to my community.”
After graduation, Denecia spent a year at the Schneider Regional Medical Center Institution in St. Thomas, a medical center connected to her school. She worked there at a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). There she took care of premature babies, some of which were as young as twenty-eight weeks. During her time there, she said that she learned a lot about premature babies, and she even saw one that weighed only one pound and six ounces which survived.
She noted: “Normally these babies are in an incubator, which keeps them warm since their bodies are too small to maintain their temperatures. The incubator acts as a little warm housing for them. Initially, they are not able to feed because their stomachs have not been fully developed so they get different vitamins through IV fluid.
“As they continue to progress, the doctors assess them. Then we can attempt either breastfeeding, bottle-feeding, or tube feeding. Once we get breast milk from the moms we start to attempt feeding and that is how we continue to monitor. Also, some of them start to give us feeding cues by starting to get a bit fussy and actually starting to suck on their fingers. That is one of the signs that indicate ready to eat.”
Currently, Ms. Hodge is undergoing orientation at the Princess Alexandria Hospital, and, she will be part of the general ward at the hospital until there is a need for her specific services.
She added: “I’m not trying to get moms to have premature babies, but I have the skill and the ability to take care of them. I do have experience with healthy babies, as well, because the hospital that I trained in was a NICU and a nursery. The NICU is for the premature babies, but the nursery is for the regular term babies. We just do vitals on them to make sure the moms are feeding appropriately and to make sure that they are eliminating well, so anything baby-related I’m here for.”
Nursing is something that Denecia has always enjoyed, and she realised her potential after enrolling in a nursing cadet program in high school. It was there that she recognised the different roles doctors and nurses play when dealing with a patient. She said;” Iam not trying to downplay the role of doctors but they don’t have a really strong connection with their patients because they come in, they do what they have to do and they leave. That takes about 20 minutes to an hour. Whereas, the nurses are with patients on 8 to 12-hour shifts, day in and day out. So we form a bond with our patients and that is something I enjoy.”
In the future, Ms. Hodge plans on pursuing her Master’s Degree in Neonatology, a two-year degree that also includes clinical experience. This will require her to leave the island and attend the school in person.
