Dale Dally-Watkins, Executive Director
Last Friday we celebrated International Nurses Day with a cake-cutting and morning tea on Level 3. It was fantastic to see so many of our nurses in attendance for the occasion. Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, Alanna Geary also visited many of the wards to thank the nurses and give out sweet treats.
This year’s International Nurses Day trivia event was hotly contested, with 10 teams nominating – our largest participation to date. There was a wide variety of questions from Taylor Swift to the current RBA interest rate. There was some controversy around whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie (Trivia Master Ben Hackwood says ‘Of course it is’). Thankfully, all the nursing staff correctly answered the drug calculation question. If you were wondering how many nurses there are at STARS the number is 560, correctly answered by the Nursing Director for Workforce.
The overall winner for the trivia competition was Sweet Carolines (Safety and Quality Team) with the runners up Outpatients Oracles and Level 2 Legends.
Thank you again to all our nurses at STARS for the exceptional care they provide every day.
Metro North Spinal Injury Services Project update
The project team recently met with staff at Redcliffe and TPCH about the project and the possible impacts for those facilities. A draft business case is currently with the Project Oversight Committee for review. Once endorsed, it will be submitted to the Metro North Executive.
If the business case is approved, further work will be undertaken to plan and implement the service, in collaboration with STARS, the RBWH, other Metro North stakeholders and the Queensland Spinal Cord Injury Service.
Staff vaccinations
Thank you to all the staff that have already had their flu vaccination. Our Infection Control team have administered over 1,000 flu vaccinations to staff which is a great result.
If you haven’t already had your flu vaccination it is still available on request – phone the team on 77961 or email STARS_staffIMM@health.qld.gov.au.
10,000 steps
It is wonderful to see many STARS staff embracing the Qld Health 10,000 steps challenge. Participants have passed the half-way mark of the challenge and collectively Qld Health staff have surpassed one billion steps. The STARS 6A Geriatrics and STARS Day Procedure teams are both in the top 10 step contributors in Metro North, with 6,442,468 and 3,864,795 steps respectively at last count, so well done. Metro North have put together their own Spotify playlist that you can listen to keep motivated. There are a few more weeks of the challenge to go, so keep up the good work.
Birthday wishes for Olive
You may recall from my last message, STARS 5B patient Olive who had turned 103. Olive was also featured on our Metro North Facebook page and the post received over 500 likes and many birthday wishes. You can read more about Olive reaching her amazing milestone on our Metro North newsroom.
Patient compliment
Lastly, I’d like to finish with a compliment we received from one of our surgical patients who had travelled from Gladstone for their eye surgery.
“My appreciation to the wonderful staff at STARS for their compassion, kindness, professionalism, support & world class care. The amazing doctors completely nailed the precision of my surgery! I’m so thankful for this opportunity to have my vision corrected. I was so anxious going into surgery, but the amazing nurses at pre-admission calmed my nerves. The nurse in anaesthetics, Ward 6B and recovery and my anaesthetist were amazing. The care they all gave me was world class. I’m so thankful for how great the care was, the support, the encouragement. To have travelled from Gladstone & be away from my family and be cared for with such great compassion & kindness meant the world to me. So, appraise to such a wonderful team!”
Kind regards,
Dale.