Proserpine Hospitals Four Decade Veteran

Advanced Practice Enrolled Nurse Debbie Phillipson first walked through the front doors of Proserpine Hospital 40 years ago and she hasn’t looked back.

She was only 21 and on a trip around Queensland with a friend, having just finished training at St Vincent’s Hospital in Toowoomba. That friend stayed on in Mackay at the Base hospital, while Debbie travelled north to Proserpine.

After an interview with the Proserpine Hospital’s matron, Debbie, to her surprise, received a phone call to say she was starting that night.

“There was no orientation, I just walked in the front door and started night duty,” she said.

“I came in and never left. I soon fell in love, got married and had children so this community is definitely my home.”

Aside from a year off after the birth of her two children, Debbie has worked continuously and still holds court across the wards and in the operating theatre as a scout nurse and also attends to the sterilising.

Debbie says she has no regrets about spending four decades in the same workplace.

“Everyone says ‘gee you’ve been here a long time’ or ‘you looked after my mother’ or I see children I saw being born having their own children and I think, they are right, I have been here for a while,” she said.

“It’s a lovely connection, most people know you are a nurse and relate to you for something in their life. You feel close to everyone even though they are not your family”.

Debbie says one of the qualities of a good nurse is always doing your best to look after people, and she has no plans to retire as one of the hospitals longest serving nurses.

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Debbie Phillipson, an Advanced Practice Enrolled Nurse, has been at Proserpine Hospital for forty years