HJBR Nov/Dec 2021

60 NOV / DEC 2021 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE COLUMN INSURANCE CHANCES are, you know who Florence Nightingale is. She dedicated her life to the treatment of the sick and frail, changed the design of hospitals and developed the field of preventive medicine. You have probably heard of the inspirational and trail blazing Mary Eliza Mahoney — the first profession- ally trained African-American nurse in the United States, co-founder of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses and an inductee in the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame as well as the Na- tional Women’s Hall of Fame. Do you know about Nurse Carla Brown? Vaccinating as many people as possi- ble, Brown turned a personal tragedy into a tireless mission. Since the death of her husband, David, last year to COVID-19, Brown has saved thousands of lives, 1 going door-to-door, neighborhood by neighbor- Transforming the Health of Our Community, ONE PERSON AT A TIME hood to administer the COVID-19 vaccine. She shows no signs of slowing down any- time soon and insists, “As long as there are people who need it, I’m going to be out there giving them this lifesaving vaccine.” A NURSE AT HEART One of nine children, Carla Brown was born inWhite Castle, Louisiana in 1958 and will tell you, “I always knew I wanted to be a nurse.”As a child, she could be found cut- ting old sheets into bandages and looking for anyone who might need praying over and some first aid administered by a young girl passionate about healing. Flash for- ward to 2020, and Carla was doing just that: caring for others as a registered nurse at a psychiatric hospital in New Orleans. When she tested positive for COVID-19 early in the pandemic, Carla’s world would change forever. Like other nurses on the front line fight- ing the virus, Carla unwittingly brought it home with her. Within days, her 90-year- old father, her brother and her beloved husband, David all quickly fell ill and, to her horror, had to be hospitalized. Her father and brother made it home, but after seven weeks on a ventilator, David died. Surviving a gunshot to the face years before as well as surviving cancer twice, Davidwas unable to survive COVID. Carla was devastated. She left her post with the psychiatric hospital and became a hospice nurse. “Not being with my husband as he suf- fered was the hardest part. After he died, and me knowing I was the cause of his death, I felt I had to do something and not let his death be in vain.”