Ms Marwa Baghdady is a true DAISY Nurse Leader for all the accomplishments, contributions, and compassion she has given. 

In this time that the Pandemic COVID 19 challenges the nursing as a team and as an individual faced battle with the unseen enemy. In this time, Ms Marwa had responded greatly to the needs of her team in order for everybody not to fall hard since one by one her nursing team is getting affected and sick with the virus. I remember how she helped during the time that one of our staff was admitted to the ICU as she was ventilated and initiated everyone to pray since we could not go inside the ICU. This staff was the only staff who was fallen gravely with the virus and diagnosed with low prognosis. Since we cannot go inside the ICU because of possibility of the viral exposure, she encouraged everyone to write in the get well soon card where most of the nurse leaders write empowering words to reach our fallen staff nurse and for her to know that we are praying for her to recover. She even prepared a welcome-back gift for her since she recovered from the deadly virus. Her compassion towards her staff is commendable and exemplary, as she knows that during this hard time, helping each other is the key to being able to survive this pandemic. With this, she was able to create a team environment where nurses show care and compassion, especially to those who were stricken by the COVID 19, starting from leaders up to the nursing staff. In this year of crisis, she encouraged all of us to help each other as much as we could, so everybody was updating each other on their situation and how they could help. 

In the past administration, there was a barrier, a wall between nursing, medical team and other allied healthcare team. Despite this, Ms Marwa did not tolerate any disrespect to the nurses on the floor as well as with the nursing leaders. She is immediately catching up and discussing with the leaders who disrespected her staffs that she is not tolerating this and suggests the best way to deal with issues professionally. I remember in the whatsapp group during the pandemic how much she discussed with another leader that his way of addressing a query from our nurse manager was not acceptable as it was disrespectful. It was also raised by the nurse manager that they felt disrespected by the way the other nurse manager answered in the group, wherein other hospital leaders were in it and reading the conversation. It was a difficult time since the Pandemic had clouded everyone due to high demand of work that sometimes they forgot to be professional. Still, Ms Marwa did not let it pass and talked to the nurse manager who disrespected her nurse manager. Even though for others, they just let it pass by, for her she will implement respect to her team the way she wanted our team also to respect others. Nowadays, we are reaping that respect she was able to earn as she herself was a role model of respect, and as she advocates that in medical or nursing, respect should be given to all. Also, the medical team sees how important the nursing as Ms Marwa enhances the image of nursing through her continuous efforts to ensure that nurses and midwives are competent, accountable, and reliable and called us to present to the New Residents of Maternity Hospital that our team greatly contributed with all the success of Maternity Hospital which is thanks to Ms Marwa’s unending support for nurses who are the doctor’s senses in managing patient care and promoting the contribution of nursing within the organization. 

I, as a nurse manager, perceived her as extraordinary, and even though I am in a leadership position, for me, she was a role model of a leader as her behavior radiates a leader ambiance that needs to be recognized. For any staff with concerns, whether personal or professional, she makes sure that she is accessible and available for the staff who are concerned. During the pandemic, she allowed them to see her to discuss their concerns. I remember at this time, she informed me how much she missed her children since she could not see them because she had to be careful that her family would not get sick since she was working in the hospital and still hands-on with everything. Despite getting tired daily with the challenges of the pandemic and isolating herself from her family, she stayed professional and continued her work with full compassion and unwavering support, ensuring that the hospital would work to satisfy the patient’s needs for quality care. She worked tirelessly with the Hospital Directors on planning how to maximize the bed capacity to be able to lessen the risk of COVID exposure since, at that time, positive and suspected were scattered in the hospital. She was part of the plan that we are now using and thanks to it we do not have a hard time in managing COVID pregnant cases in the Maternity Hospital since she was able to anticipate the need before more cases came in. she wanted everything to be in its place so that the nursing team will not have more hard times due to mismanagement. Even out of hours, night shift nurse managers, when called her for one critical issue, answered their call and helped them with the decision-making. This is not done only once, but most of the time, especially if the issue and concern do not satisfy the nurse manager with the choices made by the Director on duty, and since, during the Pandemic, all issues are new and challenging. 

In this year, we worked on so many projects to improve patient care and satisfaction. Despite the challenges and resistance of staff with the new practice, especially in the postpartum units, she was able to show them the importance of these new nursing interventions and motivate staff to achieve the project outcomes for the betterment of nursing care and increase the staff knowledge and skills in managing postpartum care. The project was a success in ensuring that no more missed care in postpartum ward. She was mentoring other head nurses and nurse managers on their projects and encouraging them with all the challenges of changing the practice for the better. Now, we have so many projects and more projects in the head nurses and nurse managers’ minds since she was a role model in engagement to projects and initiatives. She makes sure that not the same person is in the project, she also encourages other staffs to participate in the unit initiatives and projects as well. Also, she was doing her rounds in the unit even though it was Pandemic time just to ask the patient’s response or feedback to the nursing care and she will immediately manage with the nursing team. Since she is doing this, she was followed by other head nurses and nurse managers where they check other patients themselves to ensure that all needs were attended. I did the same action where I checked other patients, ask their needs and attended to it. In doing this, I understand how rewarding it is to hear from patients the word thanks which I believe is why Ms Marwa likes to check patient units and see that all their needs are attended as she finds providing care and attending to all their needs as the essence of nursing. 

During her time as a Director of Nursing at a Maternity Hospital, she was able to create a working environment with trust in the team, compassion in all services, and mutual respect for all. Her support to ensure that all staffs benefit with continued professional development and follows nursing code of ethics as she do not tolerate bad behavior among nurses which might compromise the quality of nursing care. I remember how difficult it was before to deal with nurses’ tardiness, bad attitude and refusal to do a certain nursing task. Since she supports reporting nurses who are misbehaving, the head nurses and nurse managers had since received less reports on the unfair management in the department due to no action on staffs with negative behavior. She recognizes and support staffs’ contributions in promoting patient safety and quality care. We have nursing Excellency award per month for staffs who contributed greatly in the unit, DAISY Honorees and more nominees are coming from Maternity Hospital and now the Gold Star Award which recognizes staffs’ compliance to Hospital Standards. 

I am 100% in good faith that Ms Marwa deserved to receive the Daisy Leader award for this year with all the accomplishments she had contributed not only to the Maternity Hospital healthcare services to the patients but also to the nursing team which is now a real team and not nurse alone. She was able to lift our nursing morale and supports us endlessly. With all this said, with all this much accomplishments while maintaining a compassionate leader heart, she deserves to be awarded as the DAISY Nurse Leader of 2020. 

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She is a good leader to help and guide us. The importance of integrity should be obvious. It’s especially important for top-level executives who are charting the organization’s course and making countless other significant decisions. To be frank, more than a Leader, she encourages, highly supportive character, keeps discipline, Punctuality in all the ways she handles, definitely She is a good role Model which everyone should follow. 

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:  As being as a new Head Nurse in POSTNATAL –B, I would say carrying Responsibility is a very extreme task & it requires executive Pressure to handle the Head Nurse in the Ward.  Sometimes, I feel panic about releasing a decision in various ways; in fact, I Know well if you don’t feel like these characteristics of a good leader adequately describe you, don’t panic. As a beginner, even in Critical thinking, she starts Giving Support and proper guidance to maintain & achieve my Position stronger. 

I have observed another quality about her, she is a very good observer, in every single & minute steps. As an example to say, she is doing rounds in the unit and randomly checked the patient file for any incomplete documentation, check the arrangements of the stock room, even the refrigerators in each room. Managed everything at the right time with No excuse along with a Positive attitude observe Small & Minute things That’s makes her special & really Special as an effective Leader in Maternity Hospital. 

PANDEMIC SITUATION: As being as a Leader, she executes a Marvellous Master Plan even before the crisis happens; this helps in the overall graph without any role confusion and fear. Definitely, it’s all due to the executive we could handle everything even we faced staff shortage. But we never faced any difficulties & troubles in the Pandemic situation all based upon the Creative Master Plan we could overcome with effective attitude as well.  

In the Pandemic Situation, we were to shift other units to expand the isolation unit in order to prevent the transmission of COVID-19. It was a difficult work & task to transfer she guided all the staffs & unit Members in a fantastic way to arrange the unit. From that experience, I noticed she spent her time more than her duty time in the hospital. This helps us to stay as energetic even we are don’t have energy to us to stay as energetic even we don’t have energy to accomplish our work. From the beginning, it was very difficult to cope with the new circumstances, but because of her support and encouragement, we were able to sustain ourselves in the new unit. It's achieved all the very best in all her activities to make others impressed with her activities.

In Maternity hospital, first time only we participate in the project named SBAR under the owner of Ms. Marwa, fortunately I have got chance to become one of the member of the group. With her great effort, SBAR was implemented in our hospital, and a series of meetings held in the project helped us to guide each unit to fulfill the documentation of SBAR completely, we have sustained the SBAR endorsement process and its documentation until now. Hereby I can proudly say our project became the 7th position among 250 project in the KSMC. Her guidance is really a stepping stone to each and every group member as well as other staffs in the hospital have no objection to participate in the project.

In fact, its plenty of words remaining more to explain about her qualities and it’s beyond the word with limits. It’s truly was an awesome experience which made everyone happy. Definitely I would say all the units in the Maternity hospital filed requires such a staff without any single discrepancy and partiality like her to be honoured at the end. She really a real role model for us.

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Here’s a story we have about Ms. Marwa being able to help us. Our unit is a small ward with 12 bed capacity, along with the mother patients, their well-baby also is under our care. Mostly all our patients are Unknown and blue sticker, and because of this we are giving extra precautions in taking care of the patients and their babies but we can’t avoid the fact that some mothers don’t take good care of their babies. One situation happened that Neonatal Code Blue was activated and our staff has taken actions immediately. After this incident, Ms. Marwa scheduled a meeting with us along with the staffs’ duty on that night and ask them what they think could have been done to make the resuscitation more effective. The staffs recommended on having our own Neonatal Resuscitator (Panda Warmer) in our unit rather than bringing the baby to the nursery. She is very approachable, and she is on all ears and made sure our voices are heard. After our meeting with her, she immediately responded to our request to have our own Resuscitator in our unit and the Machine came soon. But this machine doesn’t come with oxygen and air cylinder. As the head, I made a letter to request it. Every meeting with her, she will always follow up if the cylinders came and aside from that she assigned one person to follow up in person until finally it came. We are thankful for her quick response on our needs and request. We have been using the machine since then.

It was my first time to join a hospital project, and it was the “To Reduce Missed Postpartum Care” in postpartum units in Maternity Hospital. I was the only staff nurse as the other team members are Nurse Managers, from NIA, NEA and our very own DON Ms. Marwa. Despite that, I never felt being on the staff nurse level as everyone is treated fairly and Ms. Marwa motivated each of us and she is very enthusiastic that this project will be successful. Ms. Marwa herself is very active on this project, she is always present in all our meetings and if she can’t make it, she makes sure to send a representative. This project was a success and it became one of the Nursing Quality Indicator for our hospital. We even came up with the Postpartum Initial Assessment and Daily Reassessment as well as the NCP for postpartum mothers that the hospital is now using for assessments of patients. I am proud to be part of the team that enhanced the image of our hospital with the great help and effort of Ms. Marwa. From this project, missed postpartum care now are reduced and avoided thanks to the successful project.  Words are not enough to thank her for all her efforts and support in each of the units in Maternity Hospital. There are more than thousands of words to describe her.   

She is motivating her staff to act Towards Achieving a Common Goal- by meeting monthly with the team members, or if necessary, she will gather us urgently to follow up or talk to us about what exactly the team wants to accomplish. She takes work seriously by involving everyone in every decision and giving awards or recognition based on staff’s performance.

She is a person with outstanding analytical and communication skills- have always exciting ideas, she usually forward-looking, and have excellent strategic planning skills. She communicate her ideas clearly and concisely which is essential to ensure teamwork towards the same goal, she is honest and can always tell the truth in any situation. 

Because of her clinical expertise and commitment to advancing nursing, she often participates in both nursing and interdisciplinary research and committees. As a matter of fact, one of her projects, SBAR, is ranked 7th place out of 250 projects in the KSMC.

Ms. Marwa gives of her time selflessly. She spends countless hours reviewing current literature to ensure that this clinical research is based on evidence-based practice. Her eagerness inspired us to think of more initiatives in our NUBC projects, which is very helpful in improving our service to our patient care. In line with this Gyne A NUBC group was come up a CPG in drain care.

During the highlights of COVID-19 19, especially in times of disaster, we are in the midst of highly teachable moments; most of us are so exhausted and tired from the situation like the lack of staff, supplies and it came that we need to transfer from one department into another. But still, Ms. Marwa can always find something positive in everything, even in the worst of times. She is confident and calm during this crisis, she display self-confidence and exude a calm disposition, she is known to inspire confidence with others that’s why staffs of Maternity Hospital follows and believe in her.