HERO Menchu Sanchez got a shoutout from President Obama during his State of the Union address. AP
Hearts swelling with pride, Filipino-American health care professionals hailed Menchu de Luna Sanchez who engineered the transfer of 20 at-risk infants to other intensive care units when the power went out during Superstorm “Sandy.”
President Barack Obama had extolled Sanchez, a registered nurse at NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan, before a joint session of Congress, saying: “We should follow the example of a New York City nurse named Menchu Sanchez. When Hurricane Sandy plunged her hospital into darkness, she wasn’t thinking about how her own home was faring. Her mind was on the 20 precious newborns in her care and the rescue plan she devised that kept them all safe.”
She’s one great example why Filipinos excel in healthcare—because we care, said Jona Jane Tajonera, a Health care consultant.
Sanchez, a New Jersey resident who has been working as a nurse for more than 25 years, organized a team of nurses and doctors “to carefully carry the babies down eight flights of stairs with only cell phones to light the way.” This happened while her own home in Secaucus was under water.
Industry professionals expressed to The FilAm their admiration for Sanchez.
Said Carlo Zenarosa, a critical care nurse: “There was never any doubt an experienced nurse educated in the Philippines would have the resourcefulness and initiative of Menchu Sanchez in what could have been a daunting task rarely experienced in the United States—a power outage—which is an almost common occurrence in the Philippines.
“What she did was noble. I salute her for her kindness,” said Marissa Torres Langseth, an adult nurse practitioner.
“Menchu Sanchez is a prime example of the type of health care provider that we all look up to… it is through her story we can be proud both as a Filipino and a health care provider,” added Rachelle Ocampo, a health educator at the Mount Sinai Medical Center. Cristina DC Pastor of The FilAm