Two Are Newtown Residents—

Three Ashlar Nurses Earn

Prestigious Nightingale Awards

By Dottie Evans

Thomas Gutner, president of Ashlar of Newtown, recently announced that three nurses on staff at the community health care facility located at 139 Toddy Hill Road have earned the prestigious Nightingale Award for Excellence in Nursing. Ashlar is a 156-bed skilled nursing facility, an affiliate of Wallingford-based Masonicare.

The three honored recipients were Claire Hughes and Anne Monckton of Newtown, and Roseann Morano of Monroe.

The award ceremony was held April 29 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Greenwich. It took place concurrent to three other award dinners for a total of 329 nurses throughout Connecticut, held in Farmington, Norwich, and New Haven.

“These individuals were recognized for their dedication, commitment, and generous contributions to the field of nursing. Their selection inclusive of all health care settings –– hospitals, home health care, health centers, schools, health departments, long-term care, nursing schools, agencies, and medical practices,” Mr Gutner stated.

Barry M. Spero, president and CEO of Masonicare, added, “We are very proud of the caliber of the nurses who work throughout the Masonicare continuum. Their dedication and commitment is exemplary.”

It seemed especially appropriate that the awards were presented during National Nurse’s Week and National Nursing Home Week.

 

Anne Monckton: First Trained In England

The wife of longtime Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) member Donald Monckton, Anne Monckton, LPN, has lived in Newtown off Toddy Hill Road for 22 years.

The Moncktons have three sons, Richard, 27, Daniel, 21, and Tommy, 18, who graduates this spring from Newtown High School with the Class of 2004.

Before coming to the United States, Ms Monckton was a psychiatric nurse in England.

“As a four-year nursing student in England, we lived in dorms next door to the medical school. We were expected to be available to help with the patients. It was totally hands-on, because at any time day or night, we got called to come help. Working alongside a nursing supervisor, we learned by doing,” Ms Monckton said.

“There’s no equivalent to that here. When I came over six months after I had graduated nursing school, I worked here for a while at the Ridgefield Board of Education.”

But it was not long before she knew she wanted to go back into nursing, although she would have to take the LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse) course here, including pediatrics and ob/gyn, to receive her certification.

Anne Monckton has been a member of the nursing staff at Ashlar of Newtown for 20 years. She has been head nurse and is currently unit coordinator for Second Floor A, which contains 44 beds.

Having worked as both a certified nurse’s aide (CNA) and as a head nurse, Ms Monckton can attest to the importance of the CNAs in a skilled health care or hospital situation.

“They are absolutely the backbone of the system. The CNAs are the ones who interact on an everyday basis with the patients,” she said.

As unit coordinator, she finds too much of her time is spent on paperwork.

“We have very little time to spend with the patients and that is kind of sad. The state makes it more and more difficult,” Ms Monckton said.

“What I try to do in my unit is provide the patients with all the comforts of home. I tend to adopt them as a part of my family. Many of these patients are here a long time –– even up to ten years –– though the average is much less than that.”

After receiving the Nightingale Award, Anne Monckton admitted feeling both proud and sad. Having worked two decades at Ashlar, she said she thinks of it as her home. Yet she and her husband are currently in the process of making a move to Gainesville, Fla.

“Don is already down there working as a security guard at the Veteran’s Hospital, and I’m joining him in a few months. I plan to work as a nurse there. It’s not the just the patients here that I will miss, it’s the families.”

Claire Braun Hughes:

Always Wanted To Be A Nurse

Newtown native Claire Braun Hughes has been at Ashlar for a little over 15 years.

She and her husband Mike have two children, Sean, 24, and Erin, 21, and Ms Hughes says she looks forward to this coming year when both will have graduated out of college.

“They will be on their own, so it’s a good time for me to step up my career and spread my wings. Before this I’ve always had the family to think of first.”

As the middle child in a family of five, Ms Hughes always wanted to be a nurse.

“I think I was always nurturing my brothers in some way or another,” she recalled.

She received her four-year Bachelor of Nursing Science degree from Western Connecticut State University, while working her way through school as a CNA.

After graduating, she spent 15 years at Danbury Hospital, and then she came to Ashlar and has worked in a succession of nursing jobs there, each with increasing levels of responsibility.

At Ashlar, Claire Hughes has gone from second floor staff nurse to relief supervisor, to staff nurse and weekend supervisor, to supervisor of the second floor.

Then she became a multi-data set (MDS) coordinator, making her responsible for the gathering of what she calls “whole data” for each patient.

“This data provides the tool used to generate a plan of care for each resident. We assess their strengths and deficits, and we make the plan, which is revised quarterly.”

After her job as MDS coordinator, Ms Hughes became unit manager of the third floor, a 44-bed skilled care unit, and only a few months ago she was made assistant director of nurses.

“My most important task now is to take care of issues immediately when they come up. Whether they originate with the staff, with the patients, or with the families, I try to meet the needs and concerns as they occur. Also, I try to prioritize, be sure that the most important things get done first.”

She described her work as a combination of duties –– keeping up with paperwork and being at the patients’ bedsides.

“At Ashlar, we have a 34-bed rehab unit where the patients have come from acute care at a hospital and may need nursing intervention. We also have a short-stay facility.

“There are 122 long-term beds where residents who can not manage on their own are admitted. This becomes their home. We foster the feeling that this is a family. For myself, I sometimes feel that I spend more time here with the residents than I do at my own home. I try to anticipate their needs.”

The Nightingale Award meant a lot to her she said, “especially sitting in that room and seeing all my other nursing colleagues being recognized for their work. We put in a lot of sacrifice, working weekends, nights, and holidays.”