One of the newest friendly faces of Sahuaro is Ms. Martinez, the new health assistant. Just her first few weeks at Sahuaro and she has been settling in quite well as it is her first time working in a school setting. It’s a very different environment than a hospital where she worked for 21 years. Of course, working at a hospital, the hours are not always very flexible, and Ms. Martinez says she wanted to work at a school because she has two little ones. A five-year-old, an eight-year-old, as well as two stepdaughters. She said, “It hurt, I needed to be there for them.” She wanted to be more involved with stuff like helping with homework and going to school functions.

Almost her whole life, Ms. Martinez has worked in the industry.  At just 17, she started working as a CNA and worked her way up. She wanted to be a health assistant because she’s always been fascinated with the human body and why it does certain things. Since COVID-19 things were bound to change, Ms. Martinez said it was in higher demand, people were quitting and she couldn’t bear seeing people dying more and more by the days. “It was sad and stressful. Working in healthcare people can end up getting numb to it.” She said, “Working at a school, it’s all about control, they don’t want it to spread to each other.” She doesn’t have a preference between working in a school or hospital, “It’s just a different setting,” and she says here at Sahuaro it’s busy, but she’s not crazy stressed out.

When she’s not working, much of her time consists of reading and hiking. She also loves cooking with her kids. Just like any mom, she spends time taking her kids places. She loves being able to talk to kids and help with their problems, so feel free to stop by and say hi to our new health assistant.