Happy Birthday Caboolture Hospital!

Caboolture Hospital turns 30 next month and we’ve organised a whole month of fun to celebrate our journey, our people and our community. We’ve got a number of things planned:

30 Stories for 30 Years – we’re sharing facts, history and interesting stories throughout October. We’d love to hear from you or your team if they have a story to share. Tell us about your journey at Caboolture. I know we have many staff who have been here since the first day and it would be lovely to read your reflections. Provide us with some fun facts. I am so excited to hear all about the past 30 years.

Wednesday 4 October 11.30am – 1.30pm: Ice-Cream Party. With Ekka Strawberry Ice-Cream (courtesy of The Common Good) and other flavours too, bring your team down to enjoy a free ice-cream. We also hope to have some options for those who cannot eat traditional ice cream so please join in the fun. I missed out on Strawberry Sundae this year, so I am so looking forward to it.

Friday 13 October 1pm: Caboolture Hospital Birthday Cake-Off. If you or your team love to bake, please register with us to enter a cake in the Cake-Off. This is a fun competition with prizes for different categories. After judging, we’ll share the cakes with everyone. I am the world’s most terrible cake decorator, so I won’t be entering! However, I am more than happy to taste test and I look forward to consuming the results of our wonderful bakers! 

Wednesday 25 October 11.30am – 2.30pm: Caboolture Hospital 30^th Birthday Party. Come along with your team and enjoy food and fun! More info to come soon on this event.

I feel so honoured to be working at Caboolture during this month. For more details, email ckw-engage@health.qld.gov.au or phone Parker Michaels on 5433 8524.

Audio-visual upgrade ready to go!

Many of you will know of recent challenges with the audio-visual equipment in the Caboolture Hospital Lecture Theatre. Finally, some good news – we have an upgrade ready to go!

The plan is to start with the Lecture Theatre, then progress to the seminar rooms and finally to the executive building. Some room bookings may need to be adjusted to provide the installation team with uninterrupted access.

There’s a temporary halt on room bookings in the short term so we can assess the impacts of the room closures. If you have any scheduled sessions or meetings in this time which can be postponed or moved to Teams from late October to late November, please do so.

I appreciate your patience and understanding while we make these important changes but how wonderful will it be to have upgraded equipment to meet our needs now and for a few years to come.

Referendum voting

If you expect to be working on Saturday 14 October, please plan ahead when it comes to voting in the referendum.

Postal voting may be an option if you’re not able to make it to vote in-person on voting day. Find out more about postal voting from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) website.

Early voting centres will also be open from Monday 2 October. Find out more about early voting options near you also on the AEC website.

Workforce Reform Roadmap Roadshows

Metro North Health continues to explore how we can address workload demands and the global shortages of healthcare workers.

Metro North’s Workforce Reform Roadmap has been co-designed by our people, external partners and workforce experts. It aims to support our employees by creating new and innovative ways to build and retain talent and innovate new ways to deliver our service.

The Roadmap outlines critical programs of work over the next 10 years to drive workforce reform and create a sustainable workforce into the future.

The People and Culture team is hosting 12 roadmap roadshows at locations across Metro North.

We’ll have two sessions at Caboolture Hospital – on Thursday (5 October) from 9am to 10am and Friday 20 October from 2pm to 3pm. Both will be held in the Education Centre Lecture Theatre.

Don’t worry if you can’t make it at these times – you can attend any session at any Metro North facility.

View the schedule.

Showcasing compassionate care at Seniors Expos

Caboolture Hospital was well represented at the Longman Seniors Expo events at Morayfield and Bribie Island this week.

The team spoke to more than 300 people and gave out lots of information about Advance Care Planning, Caboolture Satellite Hospital, My Health Now, volunteering and Ryan’s Rule.

Overwhelmingly, people were very grateful for the care they had received and couldn’t say a bad word about Caboolture Hospital.

My Health Now was very popular and people came to the stand specifically seeking the document after hearing about it from others. This great idea from consumer Jurina is having a huge impact.

Our Advance Care Planner Desre Arnold will likely be booked out until the end of next year after handing out more than 250 Advance Care Planning information bags!

Overall, two very successful mornings promoting our services in the community.

What A Compliment!

Another wonderful compliment for our maternity and obstetrics superstars this week:

“The birth suite midwives, doctors and all staff I encountered were consistently fantastic. I felt heard, cared for and included in all medical decisions.

“They treated my baby with the utmost care and warmth and were equally as kind to my husband who was also stressed. While I didn’t have the home birth I wanted, the entire experience from start to finish was made better because of the many wonderful team members.

“Special shout out to Bec, Deborah, Freda, Siobhan, Kym, Chris, Elise, Judy, Tash, Jas, student midwives Shania and Kirra, Dr Skye, Dr Dougall, Dr Stuart, Dr Sachin, Lauren the phlebotomist – even the cleaning staff, like the lovely woman who had seven daughters and gave me tips on raising mine.

“The team at Caboolture Hospital birth suite and maternity made a really awful, painful and unexpected stay, an absolute blessing that has given me the confidence to look after my daughter well and birth in birth suite for future babies.

“Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for looking after us so well. The many conversations I got to have genuinely made everything sucky worth it.”

This compliment really highlighted to me the importance of great communication. Not every health journey will turn out to be exactly what is expected by patient/family or even the health care professional.

However, when we communicate effectively, when we provide compassion and an empathetic ear, our patients and their loved ones have much more positive experiences.

It is through effective communication that we can continue to make CKW a great place to receive care and a great place to work.

Finally,

Caboolture Hospital Nurse Manager Graham Winbank will wear a dress each day in October to raise funds for Ovarian Cancer research.

I have seen Graham do this over the last few years and I take my hat off to him for this undertaking and for such a worthy cause.

Graham, you have my utmost respect for your commitment for such a debilitating and life changing illness. You have chosen to turn a personal heartache into positive messaging and support for a large community. Thank you.

Moreton Daily wrote a great story on Graham this week. Let’s all help him smash the fundraising goal again this year!

A very big thank you to everyone for another great week. We are absolutely kicking some goals here and hopefully the Lions and the Broncos will do the same thing in their respective grand finals.

I am married to a Broncos tragic, even to the point that our wedding cake was the Broncos logo…so I guess I know what I am doing on Sunday evening!

With this weekend being a long weekend and the end of the school holidays there will be much more traffic on the roads, so please drive carefully and stay safe.

Alanna.