‘The SJD Nursing Team is passionate about doing things with care, and we are highly motivated to help patients and their families’

María José Tojo, current Chief Nursing Officer at SJD Barcelona Children’s Hospital, has been a nurse for the last 30 years. ‘I have always been a very caring person, and I knew I wanted to do something related to healthcare’, she explained. That is why, in 1995, after training as a nurse at our Teaching Campus and feeling affinity with the values of the Order, she never left the institution again.

At the Hospital, she has worked in the surgical wing, the obstetrics ward, the Emergency Surgery Department on night shift, in the Neonatology Department and in the Women's Department. After dipping her toes into various specialisms and developing her skills in several hospital departments, she began performing more managerial tasks with shifts as Head Nurse. Since then, she has been Healthcare Coordinator for the Women's Department—BCNatal—and Head of the Nursing Department for pediatric inpatients. In 2022, she was promoted to Chief Nursing Officer. She is also a member of the Healthcare Ethics Committee and the Cooperation Commission, among others.

What do you think is an essential quality of a nurse?

A nurse has to be committed, generous and motivated, has to enjoy helping others, even in difficult situations where the children we treat can't always be cured. It's always important to focus on active listening to detect issues, think of solutions and offer compassionate, human care to both our patients and their families, who may really need the support during what is a very trying time.

It's a hard job for the staff, who, obviously, must have the resources to take on these situations and a support network of other team members. Nursing is a group effort that focuses on caring, healing and always being there for the ones who need it most.

Does the Nursing Team at SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital have these qualities?

Yes, and I would say that how we care for our patients is our main strength. We really put our heart and soul into it. For example, the midwives and the staff working in the Women's Department are flawless, despite the huge workload they have and the pressure they are under. Birth rates are declining everywhere except at SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital. The Auxiliary Nursing Care Technicians (TCAI), midwives, neurophysiology technicians and other staff members are also part of the nursing team. Thanks to this collaborative effort from all staff members, we are able to work together in harmony. I would say that the nursing staff at SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital are passionate about doing things with care, and we are highly motivated to help. We totally commit to our patients.

In 2022, you were promoted to Chief Nursing Officer. How have you risen to the challenge?

When I first assumed the role, I found there was a huge lack of staff. My first few years were dedicated to fixing that problem. After listening to the staff, myself, the deputy director Patrícia Pagès and the rest of the team made the necessary changes and started recruiting. We’ve turned the situation around and now we’re at the point where we want to foster a sense of belonging to something, and encourage more senior staff to share their experience with the newer staff. To do that, we’ve developed a strategic plan that details the morals and ideals that define the direction the Hospital is going in. It's the best way to share the latest in the field with over 1,500 staff members and point them in the same direction.

What are the advantages of the plan?

Since it has been a participative process, we've tried to discern the needs from various departments and areas and resolve them. We’ve put a huge emphasis on education and offering our staff any kind of training they need. We want well trained staff so we can give the best possible care to our patients. The way we see it, the patient is at the heart of what we do, and we need to think of what they need and how we can help them. It goes without saying that we are also encouraging nursing research as much as feasibly possible.

Sometimes we forget that nurses are also highly specialised.

Honestly, it's hugely important that nurses get training and specialise in a particular area. The nurses at SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital become experts in all kinds of diseases, even rare ones, during consultations. They are constantly working with a specific kind of disease, and they take on a very specialist role. There are even some nurses who lead nursing research projects. As a group, we are becoming empowered and showing that we are capable of transversal work in other hospital projects, beyond our routine healthcare role. Our perspective is hugely relevant. These initiatives make us an example for other institutions.

Once the nursing team framework has been clearly established, what challenges await you in future?

The Hospital has a huge project under way, Únicas SJD, which is an enormous challenge for all the staff involved because of how complex it is. The aim is to make progress in the diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases.

Another challenge is to maintain ourselves and to ensure that all the work done by the nursing profession does not decline. We’ve grown rapidly in the last few years, and now we can slow down a little and focus on the exciting projects we've started. Our next step is getting our newly hired staff integrated into our culture, complementing their knowledge with the expertise of our more veteran staff members who have made the Hospital what it is today. We want to be a role model for complex care provision everywhere, with the same heart, harmony and curiosity we are known for.