Robbie

Aug 10, 2021

NSW

My name is Robbie and I have worked at Berkeley Vale Private Hospital for 30 years and 8 months.

Describe your job without using a position title?

My role is assessing, assisting and supporting the patients and their families during the patient’s hospital inpatient stay. This often can involve life crises brought on by their acute or chronic medical conditions. In this role the patient’s social and emotional needs are assessed, with a focus on improving the client’s emotional, mental wellbeing and supporting the patient to achieve their goals. This may involve a number of interventions that are negotiated with the patient and the family including counselling, family conferences, care co-ordination and discharge planning. Discharge planning occurs with referral of community services and agencies to assist the patient with a safe adjustment back into the community following their discharge home.

What motivates you and why?

I have been employed at Berkeley Vale Private Hospital for 30 years. This has influenced the person I am today, creating enormous change and growth in myself as a person and in my role at the hospital. It has been an amazing platform for growth and teachings about people, how we all interact and behave and how our patient’s feel and cope with stress and crisis. It has taught me how to work in a very busy Allied Health Team with many different personalities. It has created connections and friendships and enabled me to learn the huge impact of feeling the sense of “belongingness” and importance of feeling a purpose achieved daily. It has taught me about myself. The love and passion I have of working with my patients in the hospital has allowed me to appreciate and be grateful for the moments of time that I spend with them, and at such vulnerable and emotional times that I have realised that this is the honour and privilege of my role. This is what motivates me to continue the work daily… the people, the fabulous staff and medical teams that surround me at Berkeley Vale Private Hospital and the connections that are brought about by all our work in such an environment.

If you could learn to do anything, what would it be?

I would love to tap into more “colour”, creativity... possibly love to decorate people’s homes and create more lightness and happiness in their environment around them. I also love animals and would love to work in an animal shelter. My desire is to have more animals around me eventually.

What does the Year of Health and Care Workers mean to you?

It is a year to celebrate every health worker in any role or capacity in a very challenging, unpredictable time. This is even more accentuated in the past year by the pressure of the pandemic, with the health worker having more pressure to work in a very flexible manner with protective equipment, room size limitations and changing government restrictions brought about to keep the patient and staff risk free. These changes require the health worker to be adaptable and adjustable at often little notice, but for these reasons the impact can be huge for all health workers depending upon their own coping mechanisms and ability to change.

What would you say to inspire future generations of workers in health care?

I would say that working in this profession creates happiness and a sense of appreciation of your own life through its ability to connect you with people, provide care and support to others and inspires you to a more balanced and healthier outlook in life. Working in this field of work encourages you to be present each moment, each day… respond to what arises and listen and communicate with compassion. It is life changing!! (☺)