Navasota Nursing and Rehab recently surprised one of their senior nurses aides on her nearly half a century of service to the facility.
Administrator Melanie May says Narnel McNiel has been employed by Navasota Nursing and Rehab ever since it first opened back in 1969.
May says the building actually moved and moved back and she’s been here all that time; 48 years she’s been an CNA and at 81 years old, that’s just unheard of in long-term healthcare.
And, although she seemed a little shy at first, it didn’t take McNiel too long to come out of her shell.
She said she loved being honored because she loves her job; her patients, all the people she works with and her administrator. And her administrator likes her, too. But there are others who May is quite fond of as well; two other nurses aides also have more than four decades to their Navasota Nursing Resume. One of them, May says, is Leslie. She’s always out here at the Front Desk and greets everyone. She is just the best staff. Another one, she goes on, is Juanita. She has 44 years and she works down this other hall.
May says the combined experience of Navasota Nursing and Rehab’s current employees is more than 1,000 years, including McNiel’s own daughter, Deborah Matthews, who has been at Navasota Nursing and Rehab an amazing 39 years herself.