ANBLIK Weblog

Nancy DiPietro

Inspiration for great acts often comes from a single event. For Nancy DiPietro, that event came on Aug. 12, 2006. While attending the international nurses’ forum on the HIV/AIDS crisis, Nancy DiPietro was stunned to learn that many of the nurses treating HIV/AIDS patients in Africa were infected themselves.Not content to sit by and do nothing, Nancy DiPietro created Give an Hour, a campaign that calls upon Canada’s registered nurses to support HIV/AIDS-affected nurses in Africa. Nancy DiPietro’s hope is that every nurse who can will pledge the equivalent of one hour of pay each year to the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Since launching the campaign, Nancy DiPietro has received tremendous support from her colleagues and nursing organizations.

Her career experiences gave Nancy DiPietro the knowledge and skills necessary to create this national campaign. Building on work in an intensive care unit, an operating room, a post-anesthetic care unit and in women’s health, Nancy DiPietro joined the McMaster University Medical Centre team in 1993 and became a sexual assault nurse examiner in 1997. As manager of Nina’s Place, the Regional Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Care Centre of Halton, at Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital, Nancy DiPietro say first-hand the how sexual and interpersonal violence affected the lives of women and children.

Last August, Nancy DiPietro joined the staff of Langs Farm Village Association, which operates a community health centre in her hometown of Cambridge. Nancy DiPietro will be the nurse manager of a new satellite centre set to open this spring in the village of Ayr. The centre till provide primary health care, health promotion and community development services using a multidisciplinary team of health providers. In her new position, Nancy DiPietro will be focusing on addressing and raising awareness of the broader determinants of health such as employment, education, environment, isolation and poverty. Nancy DiPietro is excited about having a hand in bringing primary health care to an under-serviced rural community.

For more information about Nancy DiPietro please visit www.nancy-dipietroweb.net