Nursing in the 70's in Sydney - part 2

I spent my years at Lidcombe  trying to set a  reputation for excellence and the only way was to keep learning.  I had to do this as my mother had worked there for several years, and was proud of me, so there was no way to let her down.  It wasn’t that hard, simply by reading more, and working longer hours.  Because there were two  separate staff rosters -  the Matron’s roster, for the ‘real’ general nurses and enrolled nurses;   and the Chief Male Nurse roster ( for the “back wards’ – geriatric and permanent residents)  - the hospital had originally been a home for the aged and kept about a dozen wards of 30 beds where some patients had been for anything up to thirty or forty  years.

The rosters weren’t linked to each other thus couldn’t cross check on whether any of us worked 24 or more hours straight!  so some of us would work a morning plus evening shift on one roster then a night on the other, then  go back to the other roster for the next shift.  A few of us did 4 shifts in a row, till discovered. Verbal threats would scare us off, till a few weeks later.  We had mastered the art of getting paid more in nursing – though not taxation decreases!

One reason for having to do better, was as mentioned above, that my mother worked there, and any poor performance on my part would reflect on her, and she liked to brag.  The funny thing was that many of the female supervisors would roster ‘eligible’  female nurses with me on night shift and then ask if I’d asked them out yet.  Match-making was also a prerequisite to being a supervisor it seemed!  The supervisors were all senior nurses with extensive experience, many  having also trained or worked  overseas in the UK,   Austria or Denmark.

I was at the time extremely shy, more so from not wanting a nurse that I liked to reject me if I asked her out, so found it easy every day to give roses to dozens of them in the dining room, all made easy by the Sister in charge of the nurses quarters having an extensive rose garden. She suspected, but never caught  me  cutting her flowers. Included in the ‘dozens’ of nurses would always be the one I liked most. Easy!

Though I fell in love with dozens of the nurses, I never had the courage to ask them out in those early years.

When I took charge of the intensive care unit, I began spending about 6-8 hours a day outside of work, organising lecture material. Subscriptions to journals such as  ‘Nursing 1972’ (USA) (then) ; The Nursing Mirror (UK);  Current Therapeutics;  Patient Management; ANZICS; The Lamp; The RANF ‘Journal’, all  gave me sleepless hours, and I even categorized all entries for lecture material.  Though ‘evidence-based’ nursing wasn’t the vogue, it was well and truly practiced at Lidcombe.  I began agency nursing with Drake Medox when I was still working at Lidcombe as charge nurse of the intensive care unit,  only so I could  ‘steal’ ideas for improved care techniques, and better documentation/charting methods from elsewhere.  Some places weren’t impressed when I gave suggestions about better techniques elsewhere, but the fun was in the insinuation. The more I’d learnt, the more confidence I had in the field, and this always gives more power.

We worked as a team, never taking offence (as became fashionable later by some) when doctors offered lectures or suggestions for training of our nurses .  We partied together, intermarried,  and got on brilliantly. Any major differences were sorted out with a fist or two during a friendly inter-hospital footy match!   Everyone knew what was happening, but waited for the next match...

When I meet nurses and doctors from those days, they all mention how much this was one of the most enjoyable phases of their lives. Unfortunately, there was no ‘Facebook’ phenomenon, so we have lost touch with most of our friends. Recently I met one, after 20 years, but only as he was dying, as a patient of mine in haematology.  His kids, like mine, all refused to enter  nursing.

With luck, I recently was involved in organising the reunion for this hospital, fifteen years after it was closed, and twenty six years after I had left there. We expected between fifty and two hundred to attend, yet were overwhelmed with over three hundred and ninety attending, and over fifty ‘apologies’. Those attending included some from the UK, many from Queensland, many more from Perth, Tasmania, and outback New South Wales.

All spoke of the link and the bond they had with Lidcombe Hospital and with the staff there, where even the doctors knew the domestics and cleaners by name. You won’t find this occur in any hospitals today, which explains the lack of pride in belonging to hospitals today. Changes aren’t always for the better!