Drive down the wide road on the sloping hill along Manhasset’s Community Drive, into the circular opening of North Shore University Hospital, and her manager claims you can hear her laugh all the way from the 7 Tower Orthopedic Surgery Unit on the seventh floor to the first.
“C’mon!”, Marbelly Acevedo says jovially, “How can she hear me from there! I know I’m loud but that is impossible!”
A wife and mother, Marbelly, age 36, has been employed by North Shore Hospital, now turned Northwell Health, for over 16 years. Besides filling the carpeted halls of 7 Tower with her loud laughs, her mornings consist of receiving reports and checking up on her patients. “We go first thing to see our patients and to make sure that they are alive and breathing” she said. After that, she was usually on her feet for for the rest of the 12-hour work day. “Not only is she funny,” her old coworker and long since friend, Mini Mammen, said, “she is caring, compassionate, and hard working. She works three jobs!”
Aside from her three days a week/12 hour per day nursing shifts, Marbelly does also work two other jobs. As a Home Health Aid Instructor, she teaches those who take care of the elderly in their homes. “I do orientations with them,” she explained in her Hispanic accent. “I brush them up on what they are supposed to do for the patients. I train them about how to use their body mechanics.” In addition to her teaching role, she sometimes works for the Northwell Flex Staff, for which she does small side jobs that offer “a little bit of everything” when needed. “Today,” she said, offering an example, “I worked for endoscopy. I helped out with the patients and recovered them with anesthesia.”
One of the only Latina nurses on her floor, Marbelly was not always a Registered Nurse.
At the age of 15, Marbelly, known by friends as “Marbel”, moved with her younger sister from an impoverished Nicaragua to the United States to be with her father and step mother in Queens. Without her mother, and little to no English by her side, America was a foreign place to her.
But her connection to North Shore Hospital was established quickly. “I started working in the hospital as a cashier in 1995 through my dad. My dad used to be a house keeper in North Shore Hospital, so that’s how I ended up working there.”
“I was part-time”, Marbelly recalled, “and was looking for full time. I started being an SCA, which is a little lower than an aid. I had that job for seven years.”
In 2004, Marbelly started studying to be nurse in intervals. After receiving her Associate’s Degree, she started working as a Registered Nurse at North Shore University Hospital, a job which she has now had for 10 years. Currently she is taking a break from her studies, but plans on finishing her Bachelor’s Degree.
When she’s not gifting elderly patients with what they call her “beautiful smile”, Marbelly is in her quiet suburban home in Huntington either tending to her plants as “therapy” or cooking up something in the kitchen to help support her church. “I usually help with the cooking if they need me to. I help them out by selling food to raise money because we are trying to buy a church. They’re happy if I tell them I am going to cook.”
Her family, consisting of a loving husband who works as a driver, and their 18 year-old daughter, is very religious. “I like going to church a lot,” Marbelly said happily, “I feel like I can find peace. When I go to church and pray to the LORD, it’s like everything is taken away from me, all the burdens I have…it’s like everything is taken away from me.”
But at the end of the day, when she comes back to the hospitals floors, Marbelly Acevedo is ready to greet her patients and liven up the day with her unique throaty laugh. Marbelly even hopes that one day her daughter might follow in her footsteps. “I’ve been wanting her to become a nurse because there’s so many opportunities!” she confessed. “But she wants to do teaching. I say you can be a nurse and teach. There are a lot more chances. I’m a nurse and I do a little bit of everything!”
“My favorite part”, Marbelly admitted, “is helping out people who are really needy. Just them saying “Thank you for your help” makes me realize “Okay, I am helping someone”. It makes me feel good.”
The Particulars
Name Marbelly Acevedo, known by friends as “Marbel”
Age 36
What She Is Registered Nurse
