It Takes Heart
It Takes Heart is an unmissable podcast where healthcare workers share their honest and unique experiences from Australia’s frontline.
Discover real-life stories of passion and purpose, insight and inspiration from people on the inside and tales that are equal parts heart-warming, heart-wrenching and hilarious. It Takes Heart is co-hosted by cmr | Cornerstone Medical Recruitment CEO Samantha Miklos and Head of Talent and Employer Branding Kate Coomber.
It Takes Heart
Husband and Wife Nursing Couple Travel the World
In this episode, we sit down with the married RN duo, Helen and Nigel Naylor, whose careers have spanned Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and the Middle East.
Explore the complexities and nuances of providing healthcare in remote areas through Helen's firsthand experiences in Kalbarri. With no on-site doctors, healthcare providers must step up with high autonomy and adaptability.
Hear about the intricacies of healthcare leadership and the pressures of adapting to new environments on short-term contracts.
Helen and Nigel discuss the personal motivations that drive them, such as staying connected with family, and share unique experiences of living in Australia, including encounters with local wildlife and the necessity of a snake policy.
They conclude with heartwarming anecdotes about the supportive, family-like atmosphere among agency nurses and offer invaluable advice for those considering a move to Australia.
This episode of It Takes Heart has CEO of cmr Sam Miklos hosting alongside Head of Talent and Employer Branding, Kate Coomber.
We Care; Music by Waveney Yasso
More about Helen and Nigel's Charity of Choice:
The Western Australian Nurses Memorial Charitable Trust
The Trust awards grants for use by nurses and midwives to advance health care through education, research, practice and management in all health arenas in Western Australia. Visit www.wanursestrust.com.au for more information.
Get to know cmr better!
Follow @ittakesheartpodcast on Instagram, @cmr | Cornerstone Medical Recruitment on Linked In, @cornerstonemedrec on TikTok and @CornerstoneMedicalRecruitment on Facebook.
We care for the land and sea, we care for the energy, we care for our community.
Sam Miklos:We care, Welcome to. It Takes Heart. I'm Sam Miklos and I'm Kate Coomba. We hope you enjoy these incredible stories of healthcare professionals making a difference in communities across Australia and beyond Through our conversations we look to celebrate the spirit of community and care. We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land who have long practised and shared ancient methods of healing, providing care and support for their communities with wisdom passed down through generations.
Kate Coomber:Join us as we explore what it truly means to take heart.
Sam Miklos:So our guests today are the unforgettable RN couple, helen and Nigel Naylor. They have locummed in many countries around the world, including the Middle East, the UK, new Zealand and, of course, australia. Our team have worked with Helen and Nigel for a good few years now and they are so loved by our clients and their communities. In fact, often they're promoted while on contract or asked to stay on permanently. They embody the essence of nursing excellence. Their optimism, caring nature, adaptability and remarkable skill set have not only saved lives but have also inspired those around them to strive for the best in healthcare delivery. Our team at Cornerstone love working with Helen and Nigel. They describe them as hardworking, reliable, enthusiastic and very thoughtful, and always willing to lend a hand or, apparently, I've heard, offer a place to stay. We might dive into that a little bit too. So welcome, helen and Nigel to the it Takes Heart podcast. Hi, so let's get started. I want to understand where you both are now, because you're both in different spaces. Where are you, helen? Do you want to start first?
Helen:Mrs. Where are you, Helen? Do you want to start first? I'm in Culberry where we both started and then we kept extending because we give the staff Christmas off. So we stayed behind for Christmas and then they asked me to move up into the Don role. We both decided before Waxford that if I was going to do a management role it wouldn't be good for Nigel to still be here Just because of the conflict or anything like that. Not that we can't work together, but if there was an issue, how would it?
Sam Miklos:roll out. Yeah, and so then, nigel, where are you at the moment?
Nigel:I returned to New Zealand at the end of no, I've been home a month. I'm due to fly out again tomorrow, but came home. Dad needed surgery, so I've come home, done a few jobs on the property, a few shifts at home as well, yep, just to obviously keep my skills up in New Zealand. It's certainly a different level of nursing. Again, it blows me away the autonomy we get in Australia. Yeah, working the way we work, obviously with wax, we use ETS. Where we work, we don't usually have a doctor on site, and coming home to work in an establishment where doctors are there, it's quite challenging for me personally because you almost have to be wait to be told to do something, whereas obviously when we're in wa um, we're expected to obviously roll with the situation, get on, make those judgment calls and then obviously work alongside ets, um. So yeah, it's quite, quite different, um, but really enjoy being home.
Sam Miklos:It's nice and cold I bet it is yeah, um, and a few frosts and is it unusual for you, though, being apart, because typically would you be together uh, we normally work together.
Nigel:So when, so when, like when I did canada then last year, uh, I was there a month before helen arrived, um, and then obviously, yeah, we've worked in most places together, so obviously, carnarvon, kalbarri, northampton, we've always been together. And, like Helen just said, we decided from the outset, if Helen took the management role, I would step down and move somewhere else, because when we were in New Zealand, I was the manager of a large ED and Helen was one of my staff at the time and it just, even though there wasn't a problem, it just created the possibility for conflict with other members of staff. So we decided from the outset, like Helen said, that I would move away. So I'm heading back to Mullowa, so a smaller site, but, yeah, looking forward to it.
Sam Miklos:How far away from each other will you be then? About two and a half hours.
Kate Coomber:Okay, and do you stay?
Sam Miklos:would you stay together or is it more of a weekend catch-up?
Nigel:No, we'd catch up on days off, yeah, yeah, and work through that one.
Kate Coomber:Yeah lovely, ooh la la, yeah right, ooh la la.
Nigel:Watch out Some fancy dating potential out there in Dungy Way. Helen needs me to do her ironing.
Helen:Oh.
Sam Miklos:I love that. How rude and what do you need from Helen Nigel Trouble?
Kate Coomber:Do you know what? I would love to go back and talk about your earlier career and maybe where you met. You know, detecting accents, obviously. Where's home she ground.
Sam Miklos:Oh okay, where did you study? And that's a wrap, accents, obviously and where did where's home she?
Nigel:grew up. Oh, okay, so. So obviously we're both. We're both from the uk, um, we're both from yorkshire, uh, so the thing about the uk is you can live literally 20 meters away from someone, have a different accent yes, um, and different, totally different dialect, um. So Helen is from the next town to where I was from, even though she's got a rather northern accent. So, yeah, we're only maybe 20 miles apart. We met whilst we both served in the Territorial Army in the UK. We were at an air show, a Wellington air show. We used to support the air show from the field hospital point of view in case there was a major incident. And, yeah, we were drunk and we met.
Helen:They spotted my poo bear tattoo and that was it. Oh, like all, good love stories.
Sam Miklos:We were drunk and the rest is history. So what? About your career then from that point, were you both studying, nursing at the time?
Nigel:We were both qualified, weren't we? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we were both qualified. I was working, I had been working in theatres, in theatre recovery, and Helen would have been an ED nurse at the time. Fantastic, in different hospitals.
Sam Miklos:So then, you've gone on to… Many, many moons, many moons. What happened next? And Helen?
Nigel:would have been an ED nurse at the time in different hospitals, so yeah, so then you've gone on to have Many, many moons.
Helen:Many moons. What happened?
Sam Miklos:next yeah, you've gone on to have this big, impressive career working around the world Like have you just chosen places and moved to there?
Kate Coomber:How's the opportunity?
Helen:come about.
Helen:There was a lot going off when we first met because I was actually married to somebody else. Whoa, that's bad, isn't it? I love that, yeah, but things happen and it was never. We were together for a lot of years, me and kevin, and had three lovely boys together, but we just grew apart. I still loved him, but I wasn't in with him. And people say what changed? It was me, not, you know, you just outgrow the relationship. I'd been seeing him since I was 16. Yeah, and along come my toy boy, 12 years younger.
Sam Miklos:I'm assuming that's Nigel. No, no, no. Is there another answer?
Nigel:I'm 12 years younger than her first one.
Helen:Oh, okay, eight years younger than me, so I'm still a cougar.
Sam Miklos:Love it, love it.
Helen:Yeah, and then we followed a friend to New Zealand, and the reason we picked New Zealand rather than Australia, that's where she went um, and because I don't do spiders, yeah, I'm shocking. If a spider's there on a patient, I'm not going you're out, you're like no, yeah, call the team.
Sam Miklos:So how did you? How did you end up then in the middle east?
Nigel:so we were, because we were in the territorials. It was the second iraq war and, um, it was quite a bizarre situation at the time. Um, there was, they did basically a compulsory call up, so it was the biggest compulsory call up since world war ii, um, and at the time the weird thing was that there was a fireman strike on at the time at home and they so they decided to use the regular soldiers, the full-time soldiers, to stay at home and fight the fires, literally, and they sent their part-time soldiers to war. Right, so it was a bit of a weird one.
Nigel:Helen was at sandhurst, because helen was a lieutenant um, and so she was at sandhurst doing her, finalizing her officer training. And they, they said basically before she went if you do this, you'll be going somewhere hot and sandy. And Helen's like yeah, yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm going to listen to what they're telling you. And she's like, yeah, so anyway, helen was in Sandhurst and this brown envelope arrives on the doorstep, so I thought I'll open it, have a look. And so I start reading it and we're like okay, okay, starts again. And it was my name in the on all the paperwork, but helen's. So I was like okay. So I just started a new job at a private hospital in the uk and I had to say to my boss I'm, I'm off to war, wow she was like okay, and then helen's paperwork came, maybe a week later, but it was just a little bit.
Nigel:Like you know, you need to report to this place at this time and if you don't basically turn up, you'll be arrested.
Sam Miklos:It was was just like it was that serious and were? You going to the same place.
Nigel:Yeah, so we initially started in Kuwait, didn't we together? Well, helen, the night I arrived, there was a sandstorm and Helen was in the camp at the sandstorm. Yeah, helen's tent blew away and all the clothes.
Kate Coomber:Oh my gosh.
Sam Miklos:And what year is this? No ironing there, helen, we'd always be friends with everybody.
Helen:So the pioneers looked after us because we'd been doing their sandbagging. So we got to play a game of footy with them. So they moved the trucks around to try and protect us but you couldn't see a thing and you had to put your respirator on and everybody all dance. So it was like, and I spent the night in the Clydesdale tent because our tent wasn't there anymore.
Sam Miklos:But yeah, it's interesting stories and I'm surprised they actually sent me Because what was the role, what was the role you were doing there?
Helen:In the war zone. It was actually I. I was in the ED at the main field hospital, which was 200-bedded field hospital. Yeah, wow.
Sam Miklos:And what about your role, Nigel, there?
Nigel:I was attached to a medical supply regiment because in the territorials I didn't join as a nurse, I joined to get away from nursing, so I joined as a driver, so I was a heavy goods driver, yep, uh. And then they sent me when they sent me out, they touched me to the med supply regiment. So we used to cover the three services and the prisoners of war, um, so we'd make sure all the med supplies were available for them. Uh, down to like having a blood bank, um, you know, so we could do a major blood drive if we needed to. Out there, how long were you out? How long were you? Um, I think in total I was about six months, so didn't seem. But we were there before the war, when the war, the day the war started, and even though the actual fighting only lasted maybe a couple of weeks, obviously the ongoing effects are still being seen today.
Sam Miklos:Yeah so yeah, helen, being in a, you know, a 200 bed ed facility there, how was that like, would you say on reflection, that was rewarding, was it stressful, was it scary?
Helen:yeah, yeah everybody asks that question was it scary? It's a different what you'd think I'd be scared of. We weren't. It was pitch black on the night. So I could tell you stories about a nurse who actually went to the toilet, got lost and ended up in the trenches. Oh my gosh, which she was traumatised, so we had to talk her down a bit. We actually built the field hospital from scratch, so it was putting all the tent work up and stuff and people were coming down with diarrhea and vomiting because the water was just they'd sent out natural spring water but left it in the desert condition so it was like 50 degrees and it was cooking all the bugs. So people were getting sickness and diarrhea, yeah, and it's actually in the British Army to get dehydration. Oh, wow, yeah, well, but what do you do when they're causing it.
Sam Miklos:This is it. I was just going to say absolutely so how did you get to Australia?
Helen:So I'm going to do what Nigel says. How did we get into nursing All right by a plane? Fair point.
Sam Miklos:Fair point. That was Kate's question. Was it a good plane? Long last one.
Helen:Better than the one we went to Bali on oh there you go. We did a few years where I had issues with my health. I had an accident with my leg and it had led to other issues and I've actually got a pacemaker that doesn't cause any problems now and I just went. If I don't do it now, I'll never do it, and it's always been one of my dreams not Nigel's to actually do Australia. But do they really outback remote stuff and make a difference? And I guess.
Kate Coomber:Maybe could you share what you feel that difference is in comparison to. You know you've talked about the work that you're doing in New Zealand and in a busy hospital where there's a big team around you, versus when you're very remote. I think maybe some people listening might not understand what remote means and just how remote it is Like. I'd love to hear from your perspective paint a picture of what that is and the impact. Then you can have.
Nigel:So New Zealand, everything. So the rule of thumb in New Zealand is there's only two degrees of separation between everybody. Everybody knows someone who knows somebody, and that was proven when we came to Australia and we're looking at people who are like we know them, and like there was a girl in Carnarvon where Helen goes. I know her from somewhere and it turns out that she was one of Helen's students when she was a lecturer, a nursing lecturer, and then our previous Don at Calbury. We're like again nursing lecturer, and then our previous don at carberry. We're like, again, we know him and again he was one of our students as well, you know. So it's, it's very small. We bought a car in x-mas and the lady we bought the car of, her partner knew a lady we work with from new zealand. It's just everything's just so small and using. So a lot of people know people.
Nigel:So like the saying is, if you kick one person, half a town limp, um, whereas in australia the, the sheer size of australia is, is phenomenal and I don't think people can grasp it. It's like when they say, oh, it's just down the road, in australia it could be a thousand k's. It's like, okay, that's not just down the road. But you do 100k's in australia and you see nothing. You do 100k's in new zealand and you've gone through maybe a dozen towns. Yes, you know, it's like it's just, yeah, the vast scope of australia, it blows my mind.
Nigel:And being able to offer health care in those places where resources are limited, so even places like cowberry. You know it's, yeah, it's only two hours from gerrardton, but it's still two hours. If you need acute care, you know there's no physical doctor on the site, so you are the barrier between life and death there's no other way to put it for some people. Whereas in New Zealand you know there aren't many sites, if any, that there aren't doctors and you are relatively close to most things.
Nigel:So for, like, where we live, here're 20 k's away from our nearest town, um, but the major, major regional hospital would be, for us would be an hour and a half away, yeah, um, or we can go to rota, which is maybe another 40 minutes. But again, the the health system in new zealand now it's only one system called whereifata Ora, where we had 20 DHBs previously. Um, you, they were quite strict about um boundaries, like, oh well, you live here, you belong to that one and it's getting a little bit more flexible now. So, yeah, having just the sheer size of Australia yeah, is is the thing that people are going to be. If they've never been, they're just going to be blown away by and I guess one of those hospitals.
Kate Coomber:If we look at calvary, you know how many beds are in that hospital. What does it look like?
Helen:it's actually quite. I'm going to pinch this one night, all scenes I'm. We've got four bedded like little ward thing if somebody needs to stay overnight and then we've got a palliative bed. And what's nice is you get the privilege to meet the community, the people there, so everybody knows everybody.
Helen:So when you go to the shop we bumped into a lady who I call my kiwi sister from another mister. She's coming for a patient and I was just like catching up and we're oh hi, how are you doing? Meaning, how was she doing? Yeah, and she went all on about her injury that she'd been in, and I thought, no, that's not what I want to talk about. You know, and I always say to people, because you can build up a good rapport with somebody when you're working with them, when they see us out in the community, you can just smile and they can either acknowledge you or ignore you, because people will wonder how you've met yeah, yeah and then it's that confidentiality yeah but when you're working in smaller ones and like when we go like night of limbalua, it's trying to make a difference with the community.
Helen:So it's not just about nursing nursing in the workplace, it's about what can we do for that community. So we'd even looked at maybe doing some volunteer working for saint john's, if was there a way we could do that yeah, fantastic as we move along, because nigel actually does search and rescue in new zealand.
Helen:Right, he does it to go up in the helicopters. I'll tell you that. But yeah, there's ulterior motives. But, yeah, it's just, we like education. So one of the things we looked at was maybe he doesn't have thought about this. This is my next one.
Sam Miklos:I love that you're about to drop this Nigel's like all right strap in.
Kate Coomber:Nigel, let's plan this out.
Helen:Doing our ACLS instructor's course. Right, doing our ACLS instructor's course? Because if we're the back of the hand and the nurses are struggling to get to the courses, we can provide that in our normal hours at no extra pay to keep people upskilled, because we've got these different layers that we can bring to our workplace.
Sam Miklos:It's stuff like that that's so special too. That's the sort of stuff that we really look to share those stories, because I think there's so many layers to what you can do when you go into these communities. Like you said, it's not just nursing and the health facility. It's all the volunteering and the work that you can do. And then it's also what other skills do you have that you can upskill and leave a legacy in that community as well?
Kate Coomber:And if you can be doing that there locally and people aren't having to travel, then you're improving the patient outcomes there. Of course you are, yeah, you know there's, I imagine, a gap between the outcomes, sometimes in very, very remote areas versus what's accessible in a metro area, and it sounds like all of those initiatives that you're talking about get on board Nigel, because it's booked by the sounds of it. Well, now you know that's a huge impact to that community.
Nigel:The thing is, as you say, you can't just walk into a community and start dictating the way things need to be. You know you're doing this wrong. You need to do this because you've got to learn how the community and it's the same here in New Zealand you have to learn how the community and it's the same here in New Zealand. You have to learn about the community before you can be part of that community.
Sam Miklos:How do you do that? How do you do that respectfully, particularly when you're coming in and out on contract?
Nigel:For us personally. I mean, we've been in New Zealand now. This is 21 years now and even now it's still hard to understand the ins and outs of the indigenous side of things. Luckily New Zealand, most of the Maori Iwi, they do things similarly, whereas in Australia because I said in Canada one day when we were there I said why don't we have like a cultural education system where you can learn about the culture and start to engage and try to be more proactive with the, with the population? And the lady I spoke said she was the um, she was the aboriginal liaison officer with the police and she said it's just physically impossible because you've got so many um, so many groups to deal with, so many mods, that you can't. You could do something for one group here and then 20 metres away their customs are totally different.
Kate Coomber:It's not one size fits all. It's interesting because we talk about it in our teams a lot of how do we upskill and prepare people more? But that's a really interesting point.
Nigel:Yes, I think just having a broad knowledge, having some knowledge, is better than no knowledge, but it's about having the right knowledge, if that makes sense I think sometimes, on a less serious note, it's just be genuine, yeah and talk to people, so I use a lot of fun and humor when I'm working.
Helen:It's just and, believe it or not, so does nigel.
Helen:Yeah so we get up to all sorts, and I think it's that genuine thing. So I'll say to someone look, if I do something wrong, tell me, I'll be mortified, and it's genuine and it's lovely. I upset a lady in triage and I didn't. It wasn't anything I'd done wrong. I just said to her she was special to me, she was my first indigenous lady that I'd ever worked with and I says so she'll follow me wherever I go, because I'll remember her. And she just burst into tears. I was like, oh my God, I've made her cry.
Helen:But we had a laugh and a joke and I just went. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry and I think she was just touched because it was genuine.
Helen:And the other thing that worried me was we're English and I thought is this going to be a bad thing when we're going to these communities because of the lost generation and stuff like that? And you do feel it, but everybody's been absolutely lovely and because there is no filter, I am what I am. They actually appreciate that, and so I do do stuff a little bit outside the norm. So I've arranged for people to get home with the attendance and you know, um, one of the ladies said you should come out back. She said they'd love you. Yeah, because I tell jokes, I'm straight up. I try and pitch it at a level that people will understand. Yeah, because what's clear to one person isn't going to be clear to another absolutely and then that's why, as a nurse, you're their advocate they say stop.
Helen:If you don't understand what they're saying, just ask them to stop and we'll make them to keep saying it till you get what they're actually saying, and that's what we need to bring it sounds like you've.
Kate Coomber:You've really got to have the right intentions when you do this line of work it possibly isn't for everyone, and if you want a bit of autonomy in a large hospital where you don't see the same people twice and on different shifts all the time, you really need to want to immerse yourself in the community. I guess for someone wondering whether this could be the career for them, or could they do this for a couple of years, or could they try it, what advice do you have? Or really, I guess, little nuggets. That's really really critical for them to know and understand.
Nigel:I always tell people, even from a New Zealand perspective. I've spoke to staff while I've been working here and they say, oh, I really want to. I say go for it, do it. What we found coming from the UK to New Zealand initially was the opportunities here are amazing. They really really are. In the UK when we were there it was like pardon the pun, it was a bit like dead man's shoes. You know, you had to wait for someone to leave or die before you could progress through the system because it was so tight that everyone was fighting for the same thing.
Nigel:Whereas come to New Zealand, I've done multiple things. I've been management. I've done nurse specialist roles. You know I was a duty manager in a large thousand bed hospital. You know I've been able to do these because I've strove to push myself and the opportunity to be in there. It's the same in australia. If you want to, you can do it. The only thing stopping you in australia is yourself. Yeah, it really really is. Um, because you know you go. I can't do it today because it's like no, that's an excuse, you know, just go for it if you. If you do it and hate it, you just say I didn't enjoy that and I won't go back there again. Yeah, because you won't know what about training, helen?
Sam Miklos:you know you've kind of touched on a little bit there of cultural awareness training. You know the als, how do you manage the training component?
Helen:I actually think Karana is a good move going to Karana and do them sort of courses. Somebody suggested it to us and we didn't. It's one of the managers, you don't know what you don't know, but Karana will get you ready for the different steps and even if you don't want to go remote-remote, which is where we're heading, somewhere like Calbury, it's still a good sound courses to do, regardless of if you're at the older end, like both me and Nigel are, or the younger end, just to get you ready for them placements, because it's lifelong learning, this nursing, it always has been yeah um, I do think make sure you've got your ed experience in the bigger hospitals, because you're exposed to more yes
Helen:but then you're not down to the actual assessment skills and stuff and that the more you do it, the better you and some of the people don't realize how intense the training is. Now it was funny because when I applied at Cornerstone she said, oh, you haven't got your degree. And I went, I used to. I said have you looked at my CV? I've actually taught degree nurses. I've got more than that degree nurses. I've got more than that. I just don't. So I was going towards my masters and then things happened and I just didn't bother to finish it but I was only two papers off some past that. Yeah, I'm the post-grad face, but yeah, it's just lifelong learning and do their little stuff. So, but it's gonna move on to.
Helen:One of the other questions is um, you have to when you move into these different areas. Different places have different policies and guidelines. You've got to practice within their guidelines so you might be able to suit you. You might have pick line access, but is it okay to use it in wax? So, like your three yards training, then you have to get it signed off by wax before you can actually use it and that can be one of the tricky things. Everything's a process, isn't it?
Kate Coomber:And what about the challenges that you know it sounds like you've had? Well, you've stepped into this Donrol at the moment. What comes with that? Is it really hard decision? Obviously this one might have been even trickier because you couldn't continue to work together. But typically stepping into those leadership roles when you're on a short term contract and it's not a permanent position what comes with that? Is there concerns of what happens next when you leave? Or is it challenging to step up and sort of get the confidence of the team? Or is it challenging to step up and and sort of get the um, the confidence of the team, or is it? Is it quite straightforward?
Helen:in new zealand when we nidal said he was the manager of ed. What he failed to remember is that they actually made me into one of the duty managers. So I managed two hospitals and that was just nuts. So the phone calls, the pressures, doing the staffing, the transfers, the two big hospitals and getting paid less than what I do on the floor here, yeah, it's just nuts. Yeah. So coming into this, it's got different challenges being a smaller place, because the small, a smaller workforce can actually be more tricky and there's dynamics to play. But when you've got that, any management's the same sort of thing. You've got processes and stuff. What I found hard with this one was the different software. So they said a pink sheet.
Sam Miklos:What the hell is a pink sheet? The hell is a picture.
Helen:Yeah, yeah yeah, and it's on microsoft teams, um, and the processes, and sometimes, because calvary's hasn't had somebody permanent for a long while, it's the staff are sick of the change. You know, somebody comes in with brand new ideas and they've heard it, seen it, done it. They're not interested. Yeah, and I think what helped with me is I've actually been on the floor so they knew me. Yeah, I wasn't going to change who I was just because I'm in this role. Yeah, but I do have to manage them and you're contracting in that role.
Sam Miklos:Is that right?
Helen:yeah, I've got. They wanted me to take on a permanent fixed-term contract and Cornerstone was really good and said you know, if you want to do it, they don't. You know we accept, that's the norm. But then, looking at the pros and cons, if you ask me what keeps me going, I live for my granddaughter in New Zealand, so I need to be able to go on regular and that's why coniston ticks all the boxes for me.
Helen:Yeah, I can do a contract and then I can go home for a month and see elena, yeah. So she says, mama, you've been there too long this time and she wants to come and see the snakes and the crocodiles, so hopefully we'll get her out.
Sam Miklos:So I was going to ask you about the reptiles there, because you said earlier, helen, that the spiders are not a thing. I assume they are, and now you're out in Kalbarri Like how are you coping with the, because a lot of the English are really freaked out about the Australian wildlife. You know how are you coping?
Helen:Well, for the first, how many months was it About eight months, Nigel. We didn't see a kangaroo.
Nigel:Alive kangaroo, alive kangaroo, alive kangaroo, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Helen:But here there's millions of them and they're just stopping around.
Sam Miklos:Yeah, and it was funny.
Helen:I was showing my son on because we do a lot of Messenger. The kangaroos and he's like mom, don't go any closer because we've watched the clips on youtube yeah, yeah, where the people are with them and they're trying to drown dogs. Oh my god, so great. Look at me I'm going closer but an emu's. We've seen emu's and we've seen a bobtail.
Sam Miklos:We've had the kangaroos come up to the hospital door and go no, sorry, we don't treat kangaroos here we don't treat you no, not today, not today.
Helen:And spiders, we haven't really seen that many. So I've seen a snake in Carnarvon and did you know? The policy is you've got to have four people when you see a snake, till the snake catcher can get there. Oh wow, but it was the maintenance guy who come and I was so silly with him. I can't believe I got starstruck because he come and he just looks like steve and he even dressed like him and I was like, oh my god, it's that guy who died with the fish.
Helen:Oh God, I love that there's even a snake. He just went downhill from there we were talking about.
Sam Miklos:And that was when I was Keep going, keep going.
Helen:That was when I was the after hours manager. Oh my God.
Sam Miklos:The fact that you need a snake policy, like of all the other things these room right area nurses have got to contend with. It's also a snake policy. So area nurses have got to contend with. It's also a snake policy. So the I guess the nickname that we've heard that you've got is that a lot of the agency nurses will call you mom and dad. Did you know that?
Sam Miklos:yeah, yeah, yeah, as a parent, like I was like there's so many things that that brought up for me like why? Why are they calling you mom and dad? What's, what are you bringing? That's special?
Nigel:I think we just we treat. We treat people like they should be trapped. So everyone deserves right to be that an individual, but we try to look after people as well. It's like helen says, you know, if it was our kids that were somewhere foreign and you know, and they're on their own because a lot of these, uh, a lot of these people are traveling on their own.
Nigel:So we're quite fortunate because we're a couple, whereas if you're a young single female so somewhere like Carnarvon, where the not to put people off, but the local children can be quite intimidating at times they're running around, they're slapping them on the backside and things. It's quite off-putting for young, pretty girls to be walking around somewhere at night. So we just try to look after people. We invite them to do things with us. If we've got a bit of spare food, if we're leaving, we always pass the food on. We're not paying it forward, yeah, and we just like to look after people because, again, you know that's part of what's lovely we are a family at the end of the day. Yeah, healthcare is a family.
Kate Coomber:Did we hear the team talk about a story about a pub, new year's?
Sam Miklos:eve in a pub, is that one we can share, or that's a?
Helen:that's a later it makes us light up. I wasn't sure if we're being set up or not.
Nigel:This last new year's eve we were. We were just in the pub and we invited uh, one of the girls, rachel, along. She was next door in the apartments where we were and it's just come to the pub, there's a band on and we had. We'd have a good night towards the end of the where we were and we just come to the pub, there's a band on and we had a good night. Towards the end of the night we were on the dance floor dancing and this guy just comes up and basically taps on the shoulder and says is it all right if I ask your daughter if she wants to come out for a drink? And we're like she's not our daughter.
Helen:There's the mum and dad, isn't it? She's lovely.
Sam Miklos:I bet you've got our approval.
Helen:Yeah, it was funny because we were all Kiwis, because we classed ourselves as Quinglish.
Sam Miklos:So we're.
Helen:Kiwis.
Kate Coomber:I haven't heard that before.
Helen:Yeah, we're Quinglish and if she was our daughter we'd be well proud. But we said to her you know, if she didn't want, if she didn't feel safe, we'd stick around.
Helen:If she was okay and she wanted to rendezvous with the bike she just had to say you know we could go, but she'd come home with us, and it's just that sort of thing. You know, we left Rachel Lee paddleboard for you as well. We went home and then she left it at the health centre, just little things like that, and I think it goes a long way, and we have a cornerstone family, so in canada we had all the cornerstone yeah, yeah, I'd say girls, but then there was nigel, so I was all together, which was nice and, but we look after the agency staff as well.
Helen:So just an example I ended up having to do a night shift on Sunday and one of the girls was finishing on the Monday, but she couldn't get a bus into Geraldton until Tuesday and she was going to be meeting her friends. So I actually drove her to Geraldton, took her to the hospital and dropped her off at the accommodation and I says I don't want anything, I just want you to pay it forward.
Helen:So if you can help somebody else. That's what you do. That's what you do. It's that. And Sophie was our first kid, wasn't she?
Nigel:She's in Axewath College.
Sam Miklos:Do you find it hard to leave these communities? Like you really, you do create such a community around you where you go. Is it hard to move on? I suppose it is yeah.
Nigel:I suppose it is to a point because you do. Even in the bigger places you still develop relationships with some of the clients because they are horrible phrase frequent flyers. They do obviously require more intense usage of the health system than others. So you start to see people. It's a bit like the analogy where on the surgical ward the patient comes in, they have the surgery, they go home, whereas on the medical ward you see the same people time and time and time and time again. They either get better or they don't. And it's a bit like that. You do develop those relationships or those rapport. And then it's about that again. It creates that trust with the client and their family, because obviously it's bigger than just the client. And again, with some of the populations we're dealing with, it makes it more difficult.
Helen:I think it's the same with the staff as well. The ability of being agencies. You can go back.
Nigel:Yeah, if you're missing somewhere, so it's not a goodbye forever, it's a revoir for now. Helen looked at the cornerstone listing when we first started and she said if we did the minimum contracts in every place that's on this list, it'll take us seven years to work through them all. That's fabulous.
Sam Miklos:What would what would you say to um, you know any, any rands or any rns that are that are listening to this and thinking, gosh, do I want to get out and travel around australia, like? What advice would you give them? What are the, I guess, what are the benefits? But then what are the challenges that they should know from the outset?
Nigel:First of all, I say do it, just do it, because there's nothing stopping you apart from yourself. It's always a bit difficult, I suppose, if you've got family. People are always a bit like you know, but you can do it. I personally would say be prepared to study. I had mentioned it earlier. So, like going through the run side of things, it's a lot of study, you know, if you do the REC and then you've got your MEC and then you've got your pharmacotherapeutics course, you know, and then the immunization bit. It's quite a lengthy process and expensive. Cornerstone are amazing because they do help support you through some of the obviously burden, yeah, um, which is, which is really welcome, um, but again, it's same. You know, if you want to put it in, you can put it in and you'll get the benefits from it. Yeah, you know, because obviously, yeah, it's about your learning right, it's lifelong learning. So we're, whatever we learn, even if we didn't go into the right area, we can just use it where we are. I can still use it in New Zealand.
Helen:Never wasted.
Nigel:It's definitely never wasted.
Helen:There's hundreds of Nigels and Helens out there. What you find with agency nurse and the local nurses that are here day in and day out. We all support each other. Yeah, you have little quirks, but that's everywhere. But it's the fact that you build up that network. So the Facebook just keeps growing and growing and growing.
Sam Miklos:Yeah, I was going to say Because you keep in touch.
Kate Coomber:I think people will be asking how do I get on contract?
Nigel:with Helen and Nigel. Where are they at the moment? Where's that mum and dad? Can I go? I want to be with mum and dad.
Kate Coomber:I'm going on my own. My first contract hooked me up.
Helen:We'd actually be happy to do that, and we do say to some of the girls as they're going that if they want to try somewhere, just ask us where we're going next and let us push to go.
Helen:Because, it is that much shortfall, yeah, going next and there was push to go. Yeah, because he is that much shortfall, yeah. And the other thing I'd warn them maybe is is and especially being in this role I can see it is sometimes the contract work will cool off, yeah, and it's the end of the tax year, but then it soon picks back up. That's when you recharge your batteries go and travel we mix it between somewhere that's really busy to somewhere that's not so busy, so you're keeping your skills up to date.
Sam Miklos:Yeah, yeah, if that makes sense. That's sometimes that job security that people get a bit frightened about, but often we hear that it's not really an issue, it's a bit of a non-issue.
Kate Coomber:There's always something else to move on to and or it's a great time to just take a moment recharge travel see all the great places that you, that you nearby and, as you said in the beginning, like it's so vast across australia, there are so many opportunities in little towns you may not have even heard of oh, definitely there will be somewhere that that you can find tell us about the wildflowers, nigel
Nigel:oh, the non-existent wildflowers. So obviously west australia's quite famous with wildflower season, yeah. So we were driving back about this time last year. We were driving up through into cowberry in northampton and it was like I kept saying to him oh, look at all the flowers, they're so amazing. And the problem was there wasn't any, because it was a dry.
Nigel:It was a dry summer, so there's no rain it's just like this standing joke that the wildflowers are out. Normally we can see it was the other way around, but hopefully this year there should be quite a good wildflower season, so Mulloware I'm going is in the centre of it.
Kate Coomber:Yes, let us know there should be quite a bit.
Sam Miklos:Let us know we need to take some good photos, nigel and we can put it out there and let people know that these wildflowers do exist.
Kate Coomber:Absolutely yeah, Look thank you so much for your time today.
Sam Miklos:I think we've gone completely off script to be honest, it's been so nice to just talk to you both and to share.
Kate Coomber:It's normal for us. Yeah, I can imagine and us so, with this podcast and for your time today, where CMR are actually donating $500 to a charity of your choice. Where is that money going today? And it's really great to be able to raise some awareness for that charity.
Nigel:So we were. At first. Helen wanted to offer it to one of the health centres we worked at. I said I think it has to be a registered charity. So we looked at it and I found one on the system. It's the Western Australian Nurses Memorial Charity Trust. So they help with obviously helping midwives and nurses undertake research and obviously develop the nursing and midwifery profession further. So I thought that'd be quite good.
Sam Miklos:That's fantastic. Can I ask, helen, that if you were to give it to one of the facilities you'd worked? What would that have looked like?
Helen:It's Northampton, it's the aged care. It was more or less for the residents.
Sam Miklos:What would you have wanted to give them?
Helen:It's just more or less because I spoke to Di the Don there about it and she was blown away and I just went just spend it on the residents. They go out for trips every now and again. They're really struggling to get staff there and it touched me when we were working there. They were really I didn't think I'd like enjoy working in aged care, but they were amazing.
Sam Miklos:It's like a little family unit and it was just something for the residents something to cheer them up and yeah, cheer them up and actually give back there.
Helen:So maybe take them out for a meal or whatever. They spent a lot of money on the gardens but they'd run out and I just went. Just spend it on whatever you think for the residents. Okay, fantastic.
Sam Miklos:Yeah, we might have a little chat and see, maybe we could split a bit of that $500 or something because that would be beautiful. Thank you both so much we have so enjoyed speaking to you. You are just such a wonderful couple. Oh, I think we're losing Helen. Oh, she's gone all silent.
Nigel:Oh, there she is again.
Helen:She's come back. I was like did you do that, nigel? Nigel put you on mute, helen.
Sam Miklos:But we so appreciate the time from both of you and the stories and I think from a cornerstone perspective too. Thank you for looking after our community out there on the road as well. You know it's lovely to see a community um coming together in a little cornerstone community out there we haven't pilfered stuff.
Nigel:I I heard you have.
Sam Miklos:Keep grabbing those stuff we do our little Christmas parties around the country in the area. So we'll make sure we find out where you are at Christmas and hopefully you've got a little community around you of Cornerstone.
Nigel:Cool, thank you.
Helen:Well, it's like anybody who's actually looking at moving to australia. I say to them do the internet, do the internet's going, do cornerstone or agency, because then you can see where you actually want to settle down. Yeah, before you make the big leap, yeah, so very true, this is it.
Sam Miklos:We definitely are, and we talk a lot about the community, like you're part of our community, you know, and that's that's so special for us, and hearing these stories will no doubt inspire other other great candidates to get out there and jump on the bandwagon and do what you're doing so. Thank you so very much for your time today and for your time always for the team.
Nigel:Thank you.
Sam Miklos:Thanks for listening. Don't forget to share, rate and review. This allows us to reach more people and share more incredible stories. Click the follow or subscribe button to ensure you never miss an episode. Thank you.
