President's Message

April, 2008

Dear MaAOHN Member,

It is my pleasure and honor to serve as your president for the upcoming year.  Over the past four years, MaAOHN has made significant strides under past president Sheila Litchfield’s guidance.  My hope is to keep the ball rolling.  Sheila’s accomplishments placed our organization in the forefront of what is happening across the country in occupational health nursing.  She has now moved on and has been elected as a Board of Director for AAOHN.  Sheila will continue being a major supporter of MaAOHN.  No doubt she has a lot of work ahead of her at the National level.

Over the last few months, your Board has been working hard at determining our goals for 2008.  One of those goals is forming alliances with agency’s that support our philosophy and can help each of us in some way perform the specialized work we do.  I’m happy to announce that the first two alliances were signed last week and one verbal agreement with DPH was reached as part of a celebration at the State House for Occupational Health Nurse week.   OSHA, the Healthcare Employee Health Nurses Association of New England (HEHNA) and the Department of Public Health were represented.  The American Red Cross also attended and we are looking at ways to partner with them not only for blood drives but also for disaster relief.  

Over the next few months, we will be posting information about these partnerships on our website for you to review and use as you see fit.  We are trying to constantly update the website so please feel free to send anything you would like to share with other members to Barbara Haswell, Communications Chair, at Barbara.Haswell@sphs.com.

I am also available to provide any assistance that you may need relating to MaAOHN affairs or to answer questions, attend chapter meetings, etc.  We will continue to send email information about pertinent subjects and website updates.  Again, I look forward to serving you and please feel free to contact me at tadhfd@comcast.net.

Sincerely,
Terry Donahue, BSN, RN, COHN-S/CM
President
MaAOHN