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CEO and owner of Valley of Joy HomeCare/ Valley of Joy Medical Staffing, Fumi Ogunsemore, has been a nurse since 2011. In 2017, she took her career one step further and started on a unique journey to set up her own company.
If, like her, you grew up caring for an elderly relative—parents, grandparents, an unwell sibling, or cousin—you know the responsibility of caring for another human being.
For some, it can be a challenge to care for people, especially those closest to them. That’s when nursing homes and collective care or group accommodations like clinics seem like the best option. For others, like Ogunsemore, caring for people can serve as the impetus for a future career helping others in the same situation. Growing up caring for her grandmother served as this impetus, which led to her career in nursing.
As a nurse, she would often remember what her grandmother told her: “If you have a loaf of bread and you see someone who doesn’t have anything, you need to share with them.”
With nursing home care costs rising with each passing year, she soon realized how much of a privilege it was for people to have in-home care and how rare it was for certain sections of the community to afford this. This became the momentum she needed to take her career a step further, setting up Valley of Joy Home Care.
The company is set up so that it has cost-effective home and community government-funded programs for the aging, disabled, and intellectually disabled. And through the extension of this company, called Valley of Joy Medical Staffing, she’s also helping nurses find jobs.
Support for Her Community
Homecare is the sort of supportive healthcare that many people need, but unfortunately, do not have access to. Whether this is because of funds or resources, support doesn’t always reach the people it was meant to.
Aware of and eager to change this, it’s part of what motivated Ogunsemore to start her own company. Making sure that her community was supported, that people received the sort of healthcare they needed
For her, it was essential to put this mission in place firmly when she started her company. The mission from five years ago remains the same—to ensure that people who need medical care but don’t want to live in a home still receive the care they deserve in the comfort of their own homes.
Over the past two years, there’s been a tumultuous change in the healthcare industry because of the COVID-19 pandemic. With shortages of everything from PPE to personnel, the industry was shaken up.
Patients often needed more help and support than they were equipped to handle. Instead of shying away from the situation, Ogunsemore sprang into action the minute she realized how much the demand for care outweighed the care available. She founded Valley of Joy Medical Staffing, which started to help hospitals staff up during the shortages of the pandemic. Even as she lost family members and nurses through the pandemic, she continued to help nurses find jobs and hospitals find the staff they needed to continue their life-saving work.
Looking Forward
Since the company began in 2017, she’s ensured that over 40 home healthcare clients get what they need. With 74 employees, she also made sure almost 5,000 nurses were staffed. And although she enjoys managing the company, she has not given up her nursing job. A nurse at heart, she’s always ready, scrubs at hand, to help understaffed facilities when they need her.
A significant component of the companies that Ogunsemore set up is helping nurses as well as patients. For the nurses, she makes sure they can live out their dreams, whether that dream is finding an opportunity that seems out of reach or moving to another state for work.
Because she loves working with and helping her fellow nurses get their dream jobs, it’s a job that’s fulfilling for her as well. And, equipping them with what they need, like housing if they need to move or resources to help them in their career, is always possible. She uses her nursing license to find opportunities. She combines it with her ability to sift through and find the resources that others may not be able to.
“There’s an abundance of opportunities that not everyone may know of,” she said. “It’s my responsibility to access the information and people that I know and connect those in need with people who are ready to seize new opportunities. That’s my gift, and I’m glad for the ability to use it.”
About Valley of Joy Home Care
Valley of Joy Home Care has been in business for over 5 years, and with the addition of their new endeavour, Valley Of Joy Medical Staffing, have helped dozens of clients and placed hundreds of nurses across the country. They work alongside America’s biggest healthcare facilities across the country to assist in ensuring adequate staffing for their patients. To learn more about their staffing services for nurses, click here: http://www.valleyofjoyhomecare.com
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