Louise, clinical nurse consultant: We need to remember that we are highly trained health care workers. We sign up to work in healthcare and we see people's joy, devastation, sadness. And the analogy that I use is you can't walk through water and not get wet. My name's Louise Murphy. I'm a clinical nurse consultant and the Bushfire Recovery Coordinator in the Shoalhaven region. Up until recently I was a principal nurse educator for mental health services and I've taken on a secondment to the bushfire recovery coordinator for mental health services.
We need to remember that some of our staff in the region were actually impacted by the bushfires. When COVID hit, you know, , I spoke to my colleague Geoff and you know, we said “What can we do to support the mental health and wellbeing of the staff?” And so we developed this program called “Stronger Together”. So, we want to make sure that, you know, we can actually get through mentally fit and healthy.
In the evacuation centre when the fires really hit, and there was smoke everywhere and sirens, there was this eerie sense of calmness amongst the chaos, but that sense of human resilience and the resilience of the spirit was amazing.
Alright! Okay, let's gather round. We do home visits and we also help people to link into mental health services.
Health worker: Well it was actually the afternoon the fire came through here and we thought the school had gone. People standing around looking desolate and worried.
Louise, clinical nurse consultant: People feel disconnected. They feel quite traumatized, understandably so.
Health worker: I used to live at Lake Conjola, so I felt what they were feeling at the time.
Louise, clinical nurse consultant:They've experienced a lot of the isolation, and I suppose the difficulty that they have is that it's in the back of the bush fires we now have COVID. You know, it's a double whammy for that community, and so it does take time for healing and recovery and just them coming together as a group is actually, you know, healing in itself.
Father Michael, St Mary Star of the Sea: So this is where the grass fire came raging through.
Louise has an extraordinarily rich background. To have that kind of expertise, you know, to have the well-being, mental health dimension and just to work with people wherever they're at. I think the word “fabulous” covers it!
Louise, clinical nurse consultant: Mental Health Support line, Louise speaking, can I help you?
We established a bushfire telephone support line, but we also converted that to the COVID support line for staff.
And do you have many supports around you? Do you have other family?
We need them to be mentally fit and healthy and resilient so that they can obviously provide exceptional care to the patients and their families and loved ones.
I'm very serious about my own self-care and I also do a lot of mindfulness and meditation and I run three days a week. That's a good outlet because it allows me to get outside in nature and it's healing for the soul.
You know, I'm proud to be able to stand beside someone when they're suffering and when they're vulnerable and to be able to hold that space and to be able to, you know, help share in their healing process.