Before nursing health assistant Lorraine McDonald started her hospital job, she was nervous about the intimate nature of some of the tasks she would be performing. As a former hospitality worker, the change from giving people coffees and muffins to giving people bed baths felt daunting. But McDonald says her apprehension receded once she started helping patients.
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"I always put myself in the patients' shoes and I thought about how they would be feeling having to be showered or sponged," she says. "It took away my embarrassment. If I wasn't going red, then they would feel the same." McDonald, who works in the neurology and gastroenterology ward at Box Hill Hospital, says the broad aim of her job is to assist nurses to support patients' needs around nutrition, personal hygiene and mobility.
A typical day begins at 7am with a briefing about the patients' requirements. From there, McDonald will perform a range of jobs, such as helping patients eat their meals, doing bed baths, changing sheets, liaising with families and taking patients for walks around the hospital.
"The satisfaction is seeing how people can be helped along to get better again," McDonald says. "Somebody who can't comb their own hair one day and then a day later, they can. It's just encouraging them to do that.
"Little things can make a massive difference in hospital." Before starting her role in 2014, McDonald, also a qualified chef, owned a coffee shop for a decade.
She was apprehensive about applying to become a health assistant (nursing) because she had no previous experience in a health setting but she discovered t her hospitality skills were transferable.
She transitioned into the role by completing a certificate III in health services assistance through Mayfield Education and on-the-job training with Eastern Health.
"There's a hard way and an easy way of doing most jobs and Eastern Health really showed us how to do everything," McDonald says.
"I was really prepared for what I had to do."
Eastern Health is recruiting more health assistants (nursing) as part of a pilot examining the outcome of extra support for nurses in hospitals.
McDonald was initially considering studying to become a qualified nurse but says she is focusing on consolidating her experience as a health assistant (nursing).
"There is so much you can go on to in a hospital environment with a certificate III," she says. "But I'm loving this job and at the moment I want to keep learning this one and making it better for the patient."
Eastern Health is holding information sessions about its health assistant (nursing) job vacancies on Saturday, August 15, (10.30am) and Tuesday, August 18 (6pm). Visit easternhealth.org.au or email nursingassistants@easternhealth.org.au.
