{"id":7305,"date":"2024-05-23T11:16:17","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T01:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/uncategorized\/brien-supports-patients"},"modified":"2024-05-23T11:44:58","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T01:44:58","slug":"brien-supports-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/news\/brien-supports-patients","title":{"rendered":"After undergoing a laryngectomy, Brien spent the next 18 years helping others going through the same thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

After undergoing a laryngectomy, Brien spent the next 18 years helping others going through the same thing<\/h1>\n
\"Upon

Upon his retirement, Brien was given a fond farewell with a morning tea in the Speech Pathology department.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI love helping people. It\u2019s as simple as that.\u201d<\/h4>\n

So says Brien Hands, who recently retired after spending the last 18 years of his life volunteering as a Laryngectomy Support Visitor at the Royal Brisbane and Women\u2019s Hospital.<\/p>\n

Brien underwent a laryngectomy, the removal of the voice box, 20 years ago. This procedure leads to significant changes to the way that patients communicate, breathe and swallow.<\/p>\n

As the sole Laryngectomy Support Visitor in Brisbane for nearly two decades, he spent time with the patients and their families prior to the operation and gave them the opportunity to ask questions to someone who has experienced the surgery firsthand.<\/p>\n

Brien supported patients right across the state using telehealth technology based in the Speech Pathology department at the Royal. Patient feedback over the years has been glowing.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil I spoke to Brien, I wasn\u2019t aware of what was really going to happen to me. I was really scared,\u201d said one patient.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter I met with Brien, I felt that there was light at the end of the tunnel. He explained to me that things would be hard initially but that they would improve over time. Brien gave me hope that things would get better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brien said the secret was to give people that hope at a difficult time in their lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try to keep it happy for them. I crack a few jokes. I\u2019m trying to show them that life goes on after this operation. I\u2019ve travelled the world and lived a full life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Brien also volunteered his time to assist in the education of speech pathology students and speech pathologists training in the specialty area of laryngectomy. For several years he delivered a tutorial to the Masters of Speech Pathology students at the University of Queensland as part of the course \u2018Living with Laryngectomy\u2019. He has also been involved in the annual training of speech pathologists across Australia on \u2018Surgical Voice Restoration following Laryngectomy\u2019 course. Brien was integral in the development of numerous training and education videos and photos.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrien was always willing to travel to the hospital to see patients and their families with very little notice,\u201d said Speech Pathology Team Leader Ann-Louise Spurgin.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe endeavoured to always support the patient in providing accurate information and his calm, reassuring manner gives patients and their families hope that they will adjust to the changes after the surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon his retirement, Brien was given a fond farewell with a morning tea in the Speech Pathology department.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brien supported patients right across the state using telehealth technology based in the Speech Pathology Department at RBWH. Patient feedback over the years has been glowing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":7306,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7305"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7312,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7305\/revisions\/7312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}