BY ANDREAS YILMA
citizens news
BEACON FALLS — Town Nurse Susan Mis says nursing is more than applying a bandage.
“Nursing encompasses so many different things. It’s not all wound care and medication. It’s a lot of listening, visiting and counseling and advising and connecting people with services and just being there when people have questions or issues that don’t know what to do with,” Mis said. “They do have somebody they can rely on that they can call.”
Mis is retiring from her position as town nurse after she served residents in multiple ways for 24 years. Her last day is set for Aug. 1.
“It’s bittersweet but it’s time,” Mis said. “You just know when it’s time.”
Mis, 67, who was born and raised in Beacon Falls and now has two sons, started her town position in July of 2000. She has been a registered nurse since 1983 and was working the overnight shift in a long term care facility when the then-town nurse was retiring.
The head of town health commission, which is no longer in existence, recommended Mis would be a good person for the job. She said she initially didn’t want the job but she applied for the position anyway and the rest is history.
“I can honestly say this is the best job I never wanted,” Mis said. “I feel like I’m giving back to the town that raised me.”
Mis has an office in the Beacon Falls Senior Center where residents can stop in for whatever reason. When she started the position, she had one home visit and now she has 10 home visits on average with many various tasks including acute wound care, medication, connecting people with services and helping residents with forms.
“The families that I’ve met, the people that I’ve cared for, the trust that they placed in me over the years, there’s no words to describe how important and how valuable that is to me,” Mis said.
Her 20-hour position with flexible hours but Miss has been called on weekends and even on Christmas morning once. She averaged about 13 calls a month during off hours and about 20 calls during regular hours.
“Part of that and growing up in the community that I was serving, you know these people. They’re part of the fabric of my being and if they call me on Christmas morning, it’s not because they’re just lonesome,” Mis said. “It’s because they need help and of course I’m not going to turn them away.”
The town has a lending closet in the senior center that’s shared between them and Miss. The closet has various items such as wheelchairs and walkers that residents can borrow. There is no time limit or cost to residents.
Mis said she’s collaborated with the Naugatuck Valley Health District and has worked sometimes with Griffin Health and the parish nurses in the valley.
She said she will miss the job satisfaction, the warmth and the trust that residents have placed in her.
“They’ve truest me, invited me in their homes and trusted me with their health care and a lot of their real personal business that they probably wouldn’t share even like with their daughters,” Mis said.
The most challenging part of her position was the COVID-19 pandemic because it shut down everything and it’s hard to deliver nursing care over the phone. However she did still keep in with everybody that she saw.
Mis said the most significant thing she learned as a town nurse was to listen to what the patients are telling her.
“What we learn in the book doesn’t always apply to everybody,” Mis said. “What looks good in the books might not look good on the person.”
Mis said in her opinion, her position is very vital.
“I think it’s very important that people know that there’s somebody that they can call on for any concern they have and that there’s somebody there after agencies,” Mis said. ”
People have agency care but it’s only temporary. Their agency coverage expires and a lot of the agencies will call me and say we’re discharging the person. Can you follow?” She has been proud of a few things in her time as town nurse such as detecting a cardiac anomaly on routine visits – one about 15 years ago and another about a year ago and getting the U.S. Post Office to move mailboxes on Burton Road from all on one side to in front of people’s homes so that elderly residents weren’t forced to cross the busy road.
However what Mis was most proud of was being recognized in 2003 by the Valley Women’s Health Initiative as a woman making a difference in the valley. She was honored at their annual luncheon along with several outstanding women in the Valley.
“I’m proudest of getting the U.S. office to move mailboxes on Burton Road from all on one side to in front of people’s houses so elderly people weren’t forced to cross that busy road and risk being struck,” Mis said.
She said although there isn’t anyone immediately set to take her position and fill the void, it’s of the upmost importance for her position to be filled.
It breaks her heart that no one is going to fill her position for the time being.
If anybody has any interest in the town position with questions, they can call the Senior Center or the First Selectman Gerard Smith’s office.
Smith said town officials are looking to fill the role of town nurse but NVHD and Griffin Health will be providing services in the interim.
