Staff Care and Support
Care for you
Working in a hospital is like no other job. What we experience on a daily basis can be confronting, upsetting or depressing. As we all know, our personal lives go on while we are at work. Sometimes it can all feel like a bit too much. Let us know if you’d like some one-on-one attention and care. One of us will offer you our time, our attention and our compassion.
Department and Team Care
Often one employee’s crisis or loss affects the whole team. When this happens, we can sit with small or large groups of employees to facilitate reflection and sharing, to help you determine the best way to express compassion and care, to offer a meaningful ritual to help you process the situation and to reach out to team members who are particularly affected. When a crisis, tragedy, illness or death becomes part of your department’s experience, please consider contacting us and we’ll provide the care that suits your team’s needs.
Junior Doctors’ Wellbeing Officer and Program
It’s early in your career and you find yourself struggling with long hours, too many sick patients, upset family members, senior doctors who may not remember what it was like when they first started, nurses who expect you to know more than you do and some days you don’t have time to eat or even use the toilet. It’s time to reach out to someone who is there to listen and support you. Our Doctors’ Wellbeing Officer is here for you, from the first day of your induction to the last day of your internship and beyond, always ready to sit down over a cup of coffee and help you make sense of everything you are experiencing. Join one of our JMO peer groups as well — you’ll find out you are not alone, that your colleagues are feeling and experiencing the same sorts of things as you, and have wisdom to share that will help you cope and even thrive during your internship years.
In 2019, 90% of our Intern JMOs have volunteered to participate in the peer group program.
Nurse Wellbeing Program (pilot project)
In 2019 we’ll launch our first wellbeing program involving a small group of nurses, and a research project to evaluate the effectiveness of what we offer. We dream of a day when every nurse (and every allied health clinician, support staff, cleaner, business person in the organisation) has access to people and programs designed to support and improve their wellbeing.
Contributing to a more compassionate culture
Wellbeing isn’t just for individuals. Institutional culture can foster or hinder the wellbeing of its workers and clients. Throughout the year we offer events that we hope will remind all of us to take time to care for one another, things like “Blessing the Work of Your Hands”, observances of the holy days of the cultures represented in our workforce, hosting remembrance services to help us remember and grieve those patients who died while in our care, and providing opportunities for clinicians of all disciplines to deepen their capacity for reflective and compassionate practice through a variety of education programs.