Yesterday, we celebrated Mother’s Day, a day to give thanks for our mothers, or anyone in our lives who fulfills that role.

At Northern Health, we had many new mothers who spent their special day in hospital with their newborns. These mums were treated to a very special surprise. Thirty beautiful hampers, hand-packed and decorated by the staff at Pacific Epping, were delivered to Northern Health Foundation with special instructions that they are to be passed on to all new mums in the Maternity Ward as a congratulatory gift.

Our newest mums were overwhelmed by the heartwarming sentiment from Pacific Epping, with one new mum in particular, Jacqueline, delighted by the gesture. Jacqueline gave birth to her daughter, Kiara, just three days shy of Mother’s Day and received her hamper late Friday afternoon, saying, “I honestly had no idea they were doing this, but it’s really uplifting to know how much people care. It’s made my first Mother’s Day quite a memorable one.”

Quite symbolically, Mother’s Day falls in between International Day of the Midwife, which was celebrated last Thursday, and International Day of the Nurse, which will be celebrated later this week. As a new mum, the bond shared with their midwives and nurses is a very special one.

“We are so often reminded of the values we encompass as a health service – safe, kind and together. This kind donation from Pacific Epping, our community neighbours, demonstrates the kindness that exists outside our doors,” said Pina Di Donato, Acting Executive Director Public Affairs and Foundation.

Within that circle of support comes a strong sense of care from our very own here at Northern Health, who acknowledge that not everyone could spend time with their family yesterday. Many of our staff were working taking care of patients. We thank them for their hard work. Our thoughts also go out to those who have lost their mother, those who have lost a child, and those who are far away from their mothers at this time.

At Northern Health Foundation, we are extremely grateful for the valuable partnerships we have across our community. Many thanks to Pacific Epping, and our staff for your ongoing support. This heartwarming sentiment has brought a smile to the faces of our staff in Maternity, and of course, to all our new mums.

The Electronic Medical Record (EMR) team is looking to recruit 12 EMR trainers to join the team from August 2022 to May 2023.

Northern Health’s EMR will be going live in April 2023. At this stage, the EMR analysts are working with our Accountable Leaders and SMEs to validate the remaining workflows that are to be built into the system. In addition, the Change, Communications and Training team are working with our EMR champions and various workgroups to continue building their EMR knowledge, so they can share the information they have gathered with their peers.

But preparing the organisation for such change does not stop there.

We have more than 5,000 staff across Northern Health who will be impacted by the EMR. To help prepare, we will have a Solution Gallery (system demonstrations at NCHER) and Familiarisations (taking the EMR to your area of work), we will also be providing EMR training to our staff.

“We are currently looking at training our staff at a 9-week window before go live on 3 April 2022. We are securing training rooms across sites to make it more convenient for our staff”, says Cliff Wiltshire, EMR Training Manager. “This piece of work will be vital for a successful EMR implementation at Northern Health as we need to ensure our staff are well equipped before go live and keeping our patient’s best interest in mind”, he adds.

As an EMR Trainer, you will be responsible for training materials development, including eLearning materials as well as training delivery in the classroom. You will be located to a Learning Stream (PowerChart, PharmNet, SurgiNet and FirstNet), and deliver EMR training across all sites to ensure staff receive the correct level of training relevant to their roles and responsibilities.

“Based in NCHER, Northern Hospital Epping, other than the EMR training team, you will also be working closely with the EMR project team when developing training materials, and providing your expertise in your area to help facilitate safe clinical workflows”, Cliff explains.

This will be an exciting opportunity if you are interested in extending your facilitation skills, building your EMR knowledge and providing comprehensive training to your colleagues.

Apply to become our EMR trainer today!

For more information on the position, click here.

Today, we acknowledge the incredible impact our midwives have on the lives of women and families, as we celebrate International Day of the Midwife. 

Held annually on 5 May, International Day of the Midwife (IDM) celebrates the midwife profession and recognises the integral role midwives play in listening, advocating and supporting women through pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period.

Bringing a child into the world is one of the most important times in a person’s life.

The original meaning of the word midwife is to be “with woman”, however, the role of a midwife extends much further than that. Midwives are there to support expecting mothers and their families throughout their entire pregnancy and birthing journey.

Nicole Carlon, Divisional Director of Operations – Women’s & Children’s, said, “The relationship that quickly develops between a midwife and the woman she is caring for is like nothing else.”

“The feeling you get when you see a couple become a family and they hear that first cry never wears off, nor does the feeling that you made a difference when you successfully help a mother to breastfeed,” Nicole explained.

“There is a multitude of evidence demonstrating that midwifery care results in better outcomes for women and babies worldwide,” she added.

Our Northern Health midwives are compassionate, dedicated and work to empower women during this special time. They have played a particularly important role during the pandemic to provide additional support to women during difficult times.

Lisa Cox, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, expressed her appreciation.

“I would like to thank all of our Northern Health midwives for a very busy and challenging past 12 months, going through the second year of a pandemic, and acknowledge they are an instrumental profession within healthcare,” she said.

“Thank you for going above and beyond to support women and your colleagues, often working above contracted hours, in unfamiliar areas, as workforce constraints were felt during internal and community COVID outbreaks and staff furlough.”

“We have so much admiration that our midwives continue to come to work each day, support women, support their colleagues and support Northern Health on a daily basis.”

Our community often send in messages of thanks to acknowledge the impact our midwives had on their birth journey.

One patient shared their feedback expressing, “We want to thank all the staff who cared so amazingly for our little boy. We were blown away by your care and support for us all. It is a challenging time and we couldn’t have done it without you all!”

In February last year, Northern Health launched a pregnancy and birthing mobile app called Eve.

Through the Eve app, the team have received many comments from patients and families thanking our dedicated midwives including, “The midwives are true angels! Thank you to everyone that helped me have our little one. I’m totally grateful to both the birthing suite and recovery team – truly amazing and wonderful.”

The career of midwifery is broad, varied, challenging and highly rewarding. We are lucky at Northern Health to have a team of very passionate midwives, who work collaboratively with the medical teams to ensure women receive the very best care.

Please see the video below:

After more than 50 years of practising law, John Snowdon has called it a day.

John’s career in law began in private practice, working in the sector for many years until one day, he received a call from Monash Health with an offer to be their Senior Lawyer.

“I spent 13 years in that job and then I retired at the age of 68. I was then asked to stay on for a year, part time, to manage their litigation,” John said.

“At the beginning of November 2015, Siva Sivarajah had been appointed as interim Chief Executive at Northern Health. I was still working at Monash Health at the time, and he asked me if I would like to come to Northern Health and fill in for six weeks. I had worked with Siva for a decade before I came here.”

“So I came over and filled in for six weeks. Then Siva was appointed in the full-time role as Chief Executive, and he asked me if I would like to stay on. If you told me in November 2015 that I would still be here in 2022, I would have laughed.”

John’s journey has been full of surprises. One of his greatest, yet rewarding challenges, has been not knowing how each day will unfold.

“You can come into work, expect that your day is planned and by 8.30 am, plans are turned over on their head. You just don’t know what you’re going to come across and that’s part of what has made my journey very interesting and worthwhile,” he said.

John said his career in law taught him to not be judgmental, and to listen to people’s story, so he can “walk the journey with them rather than against them.”

“Dealing with families and patients at a time of great upset, suffering or fear, you stop being a legal person in one sense, and try and understand how people are feeling,” he said.

“You become a more rounded person and have more understanding of the grief, upset and concerns of other people. You see things quite differently.”

“One of the things that I hope I have done here at Northern Health is make it absolutely clear that one of our major reasons for being here is to support and assist our staff, particularly our nurses and doctors.”

During his time at Northern Health, John worked with many different staff from many different departments.

“One team that is fairly unrecognised are the security officers. They deal with people in extraordinary circumstances. I have nothing but respect for the way they turn the other cheek in circumstances where I would just lose it. That has been really impressive and it’s been noticeably consistent amongst the security staff for the last six years,” he said.

“The other group I have become closely involved with are the Aboriginal Liaison Officers. I have learnt more about the Aboriginal community and its relationships with the health services in the last six years than I had in the previous 60 years.”

“People who work here, choose to work here – I think that is really important. I think our staff, over the last two years during COVID-19, have really performed in quite an amazing and dedicated way.”

John plans to spend his well deserved retirement travelling with his family.

Thank you John for your dedication and support of Northern Health over the years.

Dr Jasmina Kevric, Northern Health’s trainee surgeon has won the prestigious Junior Doctor of the Year Award at the Australian Medical Association Victoria Awards (AMA) held last Friday. The AMA Victoria’s Award Night showcases the contribution of the medical profession to the community, and supports the work of its members and the broader medical profession.

Jasmina grew up in Bosnia during the civil war and it was that experience that motivated her to help others.

“I was exposed to trauma and wounds early in my childhood. I wasn’t able to do much as a child, but promised myself that when I grew up I would become a doctor to have the skills to help others. My parents were incredibly supportive and encouraged me along the way despite the obstacles,” she said.

It felt surreal for Jasmina to win the award, “It is an absolute privilege to have received this award. I feel very honoured. Coming from a refugee background, sometimes it’s hard to believe that I arrived in Australia not speaking the English language, to now being awarded the Junior Doctor of the Year”.

Jasmina is enjoying her work at Northern Health, in particular the level of experience she is able to gain, as well as the diversity of patients and staff.

“It is such a diverse community from many walks of life. I love chatting to my colleagues about their backgrounds and their unique experiences. The patients are also so diverse and each day feels like a new day. It keeps me on my toes and I love speaking Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian/Macedonian to my patients,” she adds.

“Northern Health is one of the busiest hospitals in Victoria. The level of experience is phenomenal. The staff expertise is fantastic, and we have all the major facilities one would expect from the tertiary centre. Yet, it has a homey feel and everyone working here is part of a big family. I absolutely love working at Northern,” Jasmina explains.

Jasmina is most proud of the connections and friends that she has made at work.

“I work in an incredibly supportive network, in particular the general surgery department, who have inspired, challenged and supported me throughout my surgical training. I’m very fortunate to work with such an incredible team,” she says.

She encourages her colleagues to strive for greatness and live their dream in healing others.

“I’d like to encourage other junior doctors to pursue their goals and aspirations. Medicine is such a wonderful profession and you’re making an incredible difference. Challenges will arise and times will be tough, but those around you can help you get there. If we look after one another, we can achieve greatness,” she concludes.

Debra Bourne, Chief Operating Officer, said: “It is wonderful to see one of our talented Junior Doctors being recognised for the enormous contribution to both Northern Health and our community. We are extremely proud of Jasmina and Northern Health is very fortunate to have her as part of our workforce.”

We congratulate Jasmina on such a wonderful achievement. A special congratulations to Dr Loren Sher, Director Victorian Virtual Emergency Department, who was nominated for the Patrick Pritzwald-Stegmann Award recognising “a doctor who has made an exceptional contribution to the wellbeing of his or her colleagues and/or the broader community.”

Northern Health’s Endobronchial Ultrasound Service (EBUS) is helping to detect, diagnose and stage lung cancer at a quicker rate.

The service, which launched four weeks ago, is a type of advanced bronchoscopy and uses two different types of scopes to diagnose and stage lung cancer. Funds for the service were successfully raised by Northern Health Foundation.

Kanishka Rangamuwa, Respiratory Physician and EBUS Lead, said the service would provide northern patients better access to localised care and treatment for lung cancer.

“One of the advantages is that we can stage and diagnose at the same time. Most of these patients have been going to alternative health services, so patients now have easier access to this service. This means we can turnaround our patients much faster which is really important given lung cancer is a fairly aggressive form of cancer,” he said.

“It also improves our ability in staging the cancer so we can give them the appropriate type of treatment. There are differences in the type of treatment you get depending on what stage the cancer is at.”

“Majority of people, their prognosis of lung cancer treatment changes depending on when it is diagnosed. If you are diagnosed with early stage lung cancer, where you can go on to have surgical treatment, your outcomes are far better. But there is still about a 30 to 40 per cent chance of reoccurrence in five years.”

“If you have advanced stage lung cancer, where it has spread to the other side of the chest or elsewhere in the body, your average survival rate is 12 to 18 months, which is why it is so important to catch it earlier and EBUS will help do this.”

Between 15 and 20 patients have undergone EBUS since the service launched. EBUS lists are performed twice a week with about three patients per list. There are plans to build each list up to five patients.

“For our staff, it is nice to have access to the procedure as we are getting faster turnarounds. We saw patients two weeks ago, they had their procedure last week and they had their results this week. In the past, it would take longer,” Kanishka said.

“The feedback we have had from our patients has also been very positive.”

Katharine See, Head of Respiratory Medicine, Respiratory and Sleep Medicine, worked for almost five years to bring the service to life.

“It’s great to see it all up and running. It is an excellent service. Katharine has done a lot of work to get this up and running, it’s a real testament to her hard work,” Kanishka said.

“We are really grateful for the Northern Health Foundation and the funding they provided for this service. It’ll make a huge different to the northern suburbs, improving the management of respiratory diseases, like lung cancer.”

John Molnar OAM, Chair of Northern Health Foundation, said, “We are pleased to see the EBUS has been commissioned and is making a real difference in the detection and treatment of lung cancer. The northern community will benefit significantly from this service, and the Foundation is pleased to have provided funding for it. I am extremely grateful to our donors and supporters who contributed to this campaign.”

Featured image: Jack Henderson, Respiratory Registrar, Kanishka Rangamuwa, Respiratory Physician and EBUS Lead and Bassem Dawood, Respiratory Physician.

As we celebrate Patient Experience Week 2022, we acknowledge the incredible care provided by our staff that impacts patient experience every day.

Today, we are sharing feedback sent in by our community on the exceptional care they received while at Northern Health.

“To the Progressive Neurology Disease Clinic at Bundoora – we truly want to thank you all for your ongoing support with Dad during his battle with MND. He put up a tremendous fight and he couldn’t have done it without all your support. You all played a significant part in keeping Dad at home and enabled us to care for him up until the end. Also, Mum and I are so grateful for the support you provided us both, we truly would have been lost without it. We also know that he loved seeing your faces each time you visited.” 

“My daughter and I both were tested this morning by the team at the Craigieburn testing site. I just wanted to say that the whole team from the traffic controllers, triage team and testers did an amazing job. All were very professional and helpful during the busy time.”

“All staff were very capable, professional and caring. ED were run off their feet but still delivered quality service. The offer of mental health support was amazing. My daughter went into ED with possible appendicitis – used virtual triage first – was directed to go into ED. Spent a number of hours there then moved to paediatric ‘holding’ area – beautiful nurse, Krista, looked after us. Moved to the ward the next day and again all nurses were excellent. A number of ‘code blue/green’ were called whilst we were there and to see available staff rush to assist was heartwarming. These people are heroes in our community. Thank you staff at Northern Health.”

“The entire staff at Broadmeadows Hospital, including at the entrance, to the nurses, anaesthetist, from junior to senior – everyone – are very well-mannered and my very special thanks to the surgeon, Dr Tasneen – she is an asset not only for the hospital but for the entire community.”

“Amazing team of doctors and nurses. From ED to Cardiac Ward, I was always informed on what is going on, and why. They all treat you with the utmost respect and care. I am going to miss them all, but my plan is to hardly ever end up in hospital again. But if I did, I would choose Northern every time. Thank you for saving me from what could have been death, and for taking care of me the entire time. Not enough appreciation goes out to you lot.”

These words of appreciation are just a few out of the hundreds of compliments our patient experience team regularly receive highlighting the wonderful care you all provide.

Thank you to all of our amazing staff that go above and beyond for our patients every day – you truly make a difference to the lives of our patients and community.

Northern Health staff and volunteers are now able to receive their annual flu vaccination.

As the colder winter months approach, now is the time for staff and volunteers to come forward, roll up their sleeves and boost their immunity with the flu vaccine.

With staff and volunteers having already received all required COVID-19 vaccines, the flu vaccination will provide extra protection against another virus. Anyone can be affected by the flu, and with little to no flu in circulation due to closed borders and lockdowns brought on by the pandemic, it is likely there will be more cases of influenza in 2022.

It is recommend by the Department of Health, that individuals receive their influenza vaccine anytime from mid-April, to ensure optimal protection during the flu season, typically between June and September.

Siva Sivarajah, Chief Executive, was one of the first to receive this year’s flu shot. He said the flu vaccine is an important measure in protecting one’s own health.

“It is still as important as ever to receive your flu shot this year, especially with COVID-19 still in the community. By getting the flu shot, you are not only protecting yourself from the flu, but also your family, friends and community,” he said.

Madelaine Flynn, Director, Infection Prevention, said, “with international travel returning this year, the circulation of other viruses will be more noticeable than 2020 and 2021, inclusive of influenza. Therefore, it is important to have the flu vaccine to prevent influenza and its complications.”

The vaccine will be administered across all wards in set sessions, with more information to be released soon. Roving nurses will also be onsite to accommodate for larger groups of non-clinical staff. Managers can email staff.health@nh.org.au to arrange for an immuniser to visit their area.

All COVID-19 vaccines can also be co-administered (given on the same day) as an influenza vaccine.

Community members are encouraged to speak to their local doctor or pharmacy to access flu vaccinations.

For more information, please see the Intranet.