Renee Grech was born at the old Werribee Mercy Hospital. Nearly four decades later, she’s helping prepare its new Emergency Department to open its doors.
“I’ve lived here my whole life,” she says. “We have a hospital on our doorstep.”
Renee went straight from high school into Deakin University’s first combined Bachelor of Nursing and Midwifery. She expected to fall for midwifery, but instead it was her first graduate rotation, in emergency at Sunshine Hospital, that changed her path.
“I pretty much just fell in love with it,” she says.
She completed her postgraduate qualification in emergency nursing early in her career, and by 2016 she was working as an Associate Nurse Unit Manager, running a busy metropolitan ED. But after the birth of her third child, regular stints of night duty became hard to sustain.
“It was just not compatible with life with the family,” she says.
So, she emailed Werribee Mercy’s ED leadership Nurse Unit Manager Lejla Ridzalovic, introduced herself, and asked for a conversation. What she heard in that meeting sealed the move.
“Lejla talked to me about how she wanted to build the reputation of Werribee Mercy Hospital and do better for the community, and I was like, I can get behind that.”
Today Renee is part of the team transitioning staff into the hospital’s $100m expanded Emergency Department in collaboration with the Victorian State Government. She says the culture is what keeps her here.
“It is definitely a very supportive environment,” she says. “A lot of consideration has been taken into the fact that I have young kids, making sure there’s a work-life balance there.”
That flexibility, she stresses, isn’t a special arrangement. “They make allowances for people who have out-of-work commitments, and that’s for everyone.”
Being local brings its own rewards. Renee has cared for her former kindergarten teacher and regularly sees familiar faces from around town come through the department.
“I love that sense of community,” she says.
For critical care nurses, the new ED offers a holistic level of support, something Renee believes will make a real difference.
Triage will be run by a team of three triage nurses, supported by waiting room nurses and a triage assessment nurse, with medical staff close by.
“Triaging can feel a bit isolating. You’re deciding how unwell and how urgent the patient needs care, and that can be a little bit scary,” she says. “Now there’s someone right next to you that you can say, ‘Hey, can I run this by you quickly?'”
The resuscitation spaces are her favourite feature of the new ED. They include a dedicated paediatric resus area, a negative pressure room and a room fitted with a bariatric hoist, and they’re significantly larger than before.
“When someone is critically unwell, lots and lots of people come,” she says. “It’s nice that the rooms are big enough to house that, and you’re not spilling out into other patients’ spaces.”
For Renee, her advice to critical care nurses considering the move is simple. Come and have a chat, just like she did.