Your Catholic Neighbor: Loida Jarumay

By Joyce Coronel, The Catholic Sun
April 19, 2007

CHANDLER — Six young Filipino women left their homeland in 1980 and landed in Kansas City, Mo., ready to begin their careers as nurses. Loida Jarumay, of St. Mary’s Parish in Chandler, was one of them.

“We have a shortage of nurses in the U.S.,” she recalls, leaning back in her seat. “My father was a bus driver and my mother was a dressmaker who had always wanted to become a nurse. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to study, but I decided on nursing.”

Loida says she attended Catholic grade school, high school and college in her native land. “Practically everyone in the Philippines is Catholic,” she explains. She and the other five nurses were roommates in Kansas City for more than three years.

“It was hard when we separated,” she says wistfully, adding that the warm Arizona climate was an incentive for the cross-country move that brought her and three of the roommates, who remain close friends, to the Valley.

A charge nurse for the Intensive Care and Cardiovascular Intensive Care units at Chandler Regional Hospital, Loida works the night shift and is the mother of four children: a daughter in college and three sons, including a set of twins, in junior high.

“Some people take their health for granted,” she says. “I take my kids to work sometimes so they can see how good it is to be healthy.

“Our units are always full,” she continues, explaining that her work involves managing the nurses who care for 18 critically ill patients. The pace is frenetic at times, but her years of experience and Catholic faith keep her grounded.

After 27 years as a registered nurse, Loida still finds it difficult when she loses a patient. It’s the suicides that strike her as most tragic, the “young people who kill themselves because they had a fight with a girlfriend or boyfriend.” The thing that really breaks her heart is the number of people who die alone, with not a single family member present to grieve their passing. “I always think, ‘this was someone’s baby once,’” she says with a sigh.

“It’s nice that Chandler Regional is part of Catholic Healthcare West now,” she says. “Every day the chaplain comes around to visit patients.” Last month as a man in her unit lay alone in his hospital bed, slipping into eternity, she remembers the chaplain who came and held the dying man’s hand.

What do you most enjoy about your work?

I like to take care of people because the patients we have are critically ill. You feel so happy when they improve and have a lot of satisfaction when they get well.

How does your faith affect your work?

I think you are more sensitive to the feelings of another person when you have faith in God. I always think, “How would I feel if I were this patient’s family member?” It never becomes routine for me — it’s personal. You have to be sensitive to what you do or you can’t give the best care.

The best thing about being a Catholic?

It’s like a family to me. I was born to be Catholic and I can’t think of anything else I’d want to be. It’s the same with being a nurse — I’ll be a nurse forever and ever — it’s what I was born to be.