American Liver Foundation’s Nurse Martha Shea Shines

This is the type of person working for the VA. Shea is a volunteer with the American Liver Foundation. When I have a complaint about the VA, it's with the people making the rules and running it, but over 26 years, I could count the number of times there has been anything to complain about when it comes to the people working with the veterans at the VA. The problem is, because people at the top forgot why they went to work for the VA, nothing will be fixed until they remember, it was to serve the veterans that gave so much to all of us.

Giving Back
‘You Feel Like You’re Talking to an Angel’
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By JAN ELLEN SPIEGEL
Published: December 22, 2008

AS a nurse who deals with liver disease — a particularly trying medical field with a steady drumbeat of dispiriting news — Martha Shea does everything but get away from it after hours.

“I’m just passionate about what I do,” said Ms. Shea, 57, on a recent weekend in a moment of rare repose at her home in Wallingford.

Ms. Shea is described as tough but compassionate by patients she has seen over the years at the Veterans Affairs hospital in West Haven. She has worked there since 1979, first running a hepatology research lab and since 1987, as a nurse — now the nurse-manager of the hepatitis C resource center.

After 25 years in the Air Force Reserve, Ms. Shea retired in 2001 and has been a diligent volunteer with the American Liver Foundation’s Connecticut chapter in North Haven ever since.

“She’s sort of a whirling dervish,” said JoAnn Thompson, the chapter’s executive director. As chairwoman of the chapter’s annual Liver Life Walk the last two years, Ms. Shea raised record amounts of money: $110,000 in 2007, then $142,000 in 2008.

But there’s more. “Whatever we need her for, she finds time to come in and help us out,” Ms. Thompson said.

That can mean stuffing envelopes or decorating the office for the holidays, as Ms. Shea recently did. But more often, she uses the medical skills honed on the front lines of liver disease research and care, volunteering at a half-dozen health fairs a year — usually opting to work a whole day rather than a single shift. And she volunteers with the foundation’s treatment choices initiative — an educational program aimed at those at high risk for contracting hepatitis C.

“I just saw the need and how important it was and how it helped the patients,” Ms. Shea said, explaining why she volunteers on top of her regular job, which includes a hepatitis support group at the V.A. hospital that she runs on her own time. “My feeling for my patients — it’s not just sitting there at the V.A. I advocate for them. I’ll go to congresspeople. I’ll help them write letters. I’ll help them find a place at the shelter. It’s not just ‘come into the clinic, get your shot, here’s your pill.’ ”
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