Greatest graduate nurse intake ever

Bass Coast Health (BCH) has welcomed its largest ever graduate nurse intake.

Sixteen graduate nurses – some who are local to Bass Coast and others who have relocated from within Victoria and interstate – started at BCH in February.

Graduate nurses will undertake either two six-month rotations, or three four-month rotations depending on their discipline.

Rotations are in a number of clinical settings including District Nursing, Emergency, Sub-Acute, Acute, Theatre and Aged Care.

“I’m very excited and am looking forward to the year ahead,” said BCH Graduate Coordinator Joanne O’Connor.

“We are blessed to have such an excellent calibre of graduates and we are so pleased to be able to provide excellent support around them.

“Bass Coast Health is very focused on providing a positive training experience to our graduates with the hope they will continue to work with us, particularly given our growth with the Wonthaggi hospital expansion project.”

BCH not only provides a graduate program for registered nurses but also supports endorsed enrolled nursing graduates.

Megan Glacken is undertaking the endorsed enrolled nurse program and relocated from Cairns to join the BCH team.

“I wanted a location change and I found during the interview with Bass Coast Health that it was a supportive environment and its values align with my own,” she said.

“I’m looking forward to experiencing all the rotations. At the moment I’m in theatre and then I will go to sub-acute and then aged care.

“So far I have found the community to be really welcoming. Just walking up the street, everyone wants to say hello to you.”

Kristian Kumarich is also participating in the endorsed enrolled nurse program, having relocated to the area from Dandenong.

“I came to Bass Coast Health because I was interested to see how a health service runs in a rural area,” he said.

As part of the graduates’ early training, new team members took part in a simulated CPR exercise with Bass Coast Health emergency physician Dr Jonathan Henry.

“It’s important to maintain fluency in rare critical incident scenarios so as we are ready when such situations occur,” Dr Henry said.

The learning and development team at BCH has expanded significantly to provide more extensive support and learning across the organisation, not only in clinical areas but also for non-clinical staff.

BCH said the growth has also been supplemented with the expansion of relationships with partners in universities and training centres.

This means for nurses specifically, BCH can employ a local student nurse into its service as a registered undergraduate student of nursing.

They can undertake their graduate year at BCH and then go on to a transition year and specialisation in a specific area. This gives nurses the ability to undertake a career pathway at BCH.

BCH said it is hoping to provide similar opportunities for local allied health students and then expand this into corporate areas.

“We are working on these pathways for all our staff in all areas, so that everyone has the chance to develop and grow,” learning and development manager Trina Coxon said.

“It is a very exciting time for the learning and development team!”