Hilda Perez Group Photo:
Ria Armendariz (far left, bald), Maria Teresa Castellanos, Annette Dozal, Charlene Applegate, Elisa Garcia, Norma Yee (partial), Paul Ocon CNO, Rosa Cervantes, Hilda Perez (Daisy Recipient), Cynthia Yee, Amanda French, Amber McGhee (bald), Angelica Alderete, Clarissa Dominguez, and Danielle McClintock (far right).


El Paso Children’s Hospital is a brand new facility, and we opened our doors on Valentine Day 2012 (February 14th, 2012). We sit on the border with Mexico, and are the only freestanding children’s hospital, serving a 250 mile radius (covering Texas and New Mexico). On May 10th, we recognized our very first DAISY recipient, Hilda Perez. She serves the pediatric hematology and oncology patient in our outpatient infusion center. Below is her nomination:

“Sometimes it is not when things are going well, when one’s true self comes out shining”. It’s like that old saying, “A nurse is like a teabag, the longer she’s in hot water, the stronger she gets!” Hilda Perez had a couple bad days in the infusion clinic, where waits were long and families were getting more frustrated. I asked her one day, why she kept coming back day after day with such a positive attitude. She calmly replied, “I’ve waited a long time to have a children’s hospital take care of kids in El Paso. I’m not going to have a couple bad days derail my dreams.” I believe Hilda reflects the type of nurse we all yearn to be, looking beyond the crisis of today, to the dream of why we all choose to be here at El Paso Children’s Hospital. “

Her story went international, and she was highlighted in the local newspaper (El Diario), in our sister city of Juarez, Mexico.