I am a registered nurse working at the Aged Care Rehabilitation Ward at St. Georges Hospital in Kew (under St. Vincent's Health). I have been working there for almost 3 years now and I love what I do. I enjoy working with elderly people. They have so many things to say! They are like walking history. One of the challenging things I have encountered with my job is dealing with elderly patients whose got a non-english speaking background (NESB). It was indeed a challenge comunicating with them. Translation cards help but not that significantly much. What I find really useful are gestures, signs and body language. It's just so amazing on how you become an actor or a translator yourself just to convey what you wanted to say and try to interpret what they are trying to express. Just last wednesday morning when I have to take this indian lady's staples out from her left knee. She was so frightened when I came to her bedside with a trolley of my equipment. She knew that the time has come for her staples to come out. She was so afraid. The first instinct that came into me was to hug her and pat her in the back and tell her..."Everything's going to be alright". Then I prepared my trolley, set up all the equipment and start to take out every staple. A total of 28 staples came out from her knee, and every staple that was taken out, you'll hear her moan. When the last staple came out, you know what she did? She hug me back...a real hard hug. I saw tears fall from her eyes...tears of joy as what it seems..and she smiled...
I remembered what my mum said to me..."Look after your patients as if you are looking after us, your parents".
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