She wanted to help people, so at the age of 17, Barb Harper became a nurse.
Ms Harper retired last Friday, after 50 years of service at Sale Hospital.
The emergency department senior nurse was acknowledged at the recent Central Gippsland Health Service (CGHS) 2021/22 annual meeting for dedication over half a century.
Ms Harper began her hospital training at Sale Hospital in 1972, graduating in 1975, where she worked as a nurse on the Rebecca Mills Ward.
“I wanted to care for people,” Ms Harper said.
“There have been lots of highlights; there have been scary times; there have been major traumas before trauma used to go to major trauma centres.
“I have made friends with patients that are ongoing friendships, a few staff that I work with, my first boss at the Rebecca Mills Ward; I become extremely close friends with her, ending up becoming her neighbour, and she only died in the last 18 months.”
Ms Harper has witnessed first-hand the 50 years of changes to Australia’s and Gippsland’s health care system, reaching countless milestones in medical technology innovation, research, record keeping and uniform.
Before the 1990s, when female nurses successfully advocated for the option to wear pants, introducing the modern healthcare uniform – scrubs – nurses wore skirts or dresses, accessorised with white hats.
In 1977, the first live human subject was imaged in an MRI machine; by the 1980s, these life-saving medical imaging technologies became commercially available and are now commonly used for imaging internal body structures, particularly soft tissues like the brain.
Medical research and pharmaceutical advancements have completely transformed the healthcare landscape, take for instance, anti-viral therapy for HIV, first made available in 1996. Anti-viral therapy for HIV has changed the outlook from death in most cases to an expectation of near-normal lifespan for most HIV-positive patients.
“There have been lots and lots of changes [over the years], especially academically,” Ms Harper said.
“My study books, from when I started, probably look like kindergarten books now, nurses’ knowledge base is so much more than what we did. We did a lot more practical stuff early in our training because we were hospital-based, we worked on the wards after eight weeks; that’s scary, isn’t it?
“Nurses learn so much more now, their education is so much more, and of course, lots has been discovered in the last 10, 20, 30, 40 years.
“A lot of the stuff we are doing now has only been discovered recently, so there has to be a lot more education, but as long as nurses have got care and compassion, they make really good nurses because they’ve got that extended knowledge base and there are some really, really good nurses out there.”
Ms Harper is one of those really, really good nurses out there, with CGHS chief executive, Mark Dykgraaf, acknowledging her high regard within the hospital and broader community.
“Thank you so much for your service Barb; it has been exceptional,” Mr Dykgraaf said.
Mr Dykgraaf and CGHS board chair, Jim Vivian, gifted Ms Harper a dazzling bouquet of flowers and a framed certificate in honour of her service at the annual meeting, with other long-serving Sale Hospital employees also receiving badges for their 20, 30 and 40 years of service.
“I’ve loved every minute of it – thank you,” Ms Harper said.
While Ms Harper will miss nursing, the new retiree looks forward to her next phase of life, excited to take on additional duties in her flower club, devote more time to her garden and small farm, and spend time with her grandchildren and church friends.
