- Hi, this is Fredia from Hancock Ochsner,
calling you about your procedure on Monday?
All right, so you're gonna arrive here
Monday morning at 6:45,
nothing to eat or drink after midnight
and have somebody with you to drive you home.
Hi, my name is Fredia Eley.
I am the Supervisor for Pre-Op and PACU
here at Hancock Medical Center.
I oversee approximately 10 staff members,
making sure patients come in on pre-op,
get ready for surgery, and they go into surgery,
and then when they come out postop,
when they're going home for discharge
we make sure those needs are met before they leave here.
You doing okay?
- [Man] Oh, you bet.
- [Fredia] If they have any questions
about their surgeries, any concerns,
I make sure they have what they need
before they have surgery.
'Cause by time you go home,
you don't even think about,
"Okay, I need crutches, I need a wheelchair."
I make sure all those needs are met.
I know we're gonna take good care of you, okay?
We're gonna get to you to Dr. Benzene,
should be finished with the other surgery in a few minutes
and then we'll get your room ready
and we'll get you back there, okay?
- [Man] Oh, yes, ma'am. - [Fredia] Okay.
You don't just let patients walk in and walk out,
they're not numbers, you know.
You gonna watch the Saints game this Sunday?
- It depends, I'll probably be relaxing in here.
- [Fredia] I'm gonna go to the game Sunday.
Play them foul, cause I gotta see them
beat them dirty birds up.
- [Man] Oh, okay, - [Doctor] Brown Sugar
- [Fredia] Brown Sugar, you see that?
I have a nickname that the patients call me
when they come here
and they call me, my nickname is Brown Sugar.
- [Nurse] Where did you get that name from?
- Few years ago, I had a patient came in,
his nickname was Sugar,
and so I was trying to break the ice with him
have some fun with him,
I said, "So you're Mr. Sugar."
And so he said, "Yes ma'am."
And I said, "Well, I'm Brown Sugar."
So it just went on from there.
- [Nurse] I did not know that.
- Yeah, I'll be in a grocery store some times,
my husband's like, "I'm not going
"to the store with you today."
Cause when you go to Walmart,
they're hollering "Brown Sugar, Brown Sugar."
My husband's like "Brown Sugar?
"Something going on you wanna tell me?"
- [Nurse] Right? (Laughing)
A total of 26 years, I've been here.
And my mom worked here 30 years,
she retired from here, she trained a lot of nurses here
and I've always stayed loyal
to the hospital, to my community.
It's like a calling to me.
This is my daughter, Nicole.
Hey Boo, how you doing?
She's an LPN here on the family practice floor.
She's been hired here about a month ago.
She's following her mama's footsteps.
You know, it's a generation of caring for people.
My mom did it, I did it, she's gonna do it,
and we going figure out which grandchild's gonna do it.
- She's teaching me to be tough. (laughs)
- [Fredia] I'm probably gonna work
here until I'm 70 years old.
Somebody said, "when you gonna retire?"
I'm not gonna retire, I'm gonna refire.
You know, I could be in a store now, at Walmart.
Somebody'd say, "Hey, you know,
"I remember you saved my life."
"I remember you did this for my grandchild."
You know, I just never want to be that nurse
that just, "Oh, I don't remember them."
I remember them, you know, and they remember me.
That's just how this community is.
You say it's the hospitality state,
this is where it starts at.
I come out here sometimes and sit
and I have my favorite prayer that I do.
I do Psalms 91.
"He that dwelleth in the secret place
"of the most High shall abide
"under the shadow of the Almighty."
Sometimes I just be quiet and appreciate that I am a nurse
and that God gave me this gift to do.
It's not my gift, it's His gift
and that I use this gift for His calling,
not for mine.
Sometimes days get bad, you know,
we went through COVID, it gets depressing.
I've always tried to be the light.
You gotta be the strength when nobody else is the strength.
And I think that's a part of nursing, you know.
When nobody else can be strong for their self,
you gotta be strong for them.
No matter how bad it gets,
our intent is to do good by our patients
every day when we walk in the door.
- [Nurse] This is a picture
that one of the local New Orleans artists,
Terrence Osborne, did for some of the nurses
in New Orleans during the COVID pandemic.
I look at that and I see that picture
and it says the front line,
but you can't have a front line
if you don't have a strong team that also pushes you,
so that makes me who I am, is the team,
the team that I work with, you know,
and these are some some awesome women, you know,
they endured a lot in the last couple of years
and they're just mighty.
(enlightening music)