Nurses comprise about 35 percent of Clark Regional Medical Center’s staff of 700, and hospital administrators took the opportunity to honor their work last week.

The events were part of Nurses Week, which ran May 6-12, Clark Regional’s Associate Chief nursing Officer Kelly Stratton said.

“Nursing is not always an easy job but it is a fulfilling job,” Stratton said. “We want to make sure we appreciate our nurses and what they do.”

Stratton said the hospital staff planned events throughout the week to say “thank you” to the hospital’s 250 nurses.

Throughout the week, there were events scheduled to include those working both day and night shifts, she said. One day, the administrators cooked breakfast for the nurses. On another, they delivered ice cream to the units. On a third, there were doughnuts for the day shift and cookies for the night shift, she said. One day, an outside company came in to offer facials for nurses, she said.

This year, they added a “blessing of the hands” where Mike Smith from Church of the Living God came in and went around to the various units and prayed for and with the nurses, Stratton said. For many nurses, that was the most significant event of the week.

“It brought us back to why we do what we do,” she said.