Mundubbera Hospital a finalist for aged care award
Mundubbera Hospital is one of three finalists in the running for the Excellence in Aged Care category of the 2018 QLD Community Achievement Awards.
Central & North Burnett
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THE loving and family-oriented community at Mundubbera Hospital keeps the same staff around for decades, nurse unit manager Jan-Adele Hotz believes.
It's also this attention to detail and warmth that has helped the facility to become one of three finalists in the Excellence in Aged Care category of the 2018 QLD Community Achievement Awards, for the first time ever.
"It feels really good, no one is here for the accolades, and the beauty of awards like this is that your staff get acknowledged,” Mrs Hotz said.
Last year the staff were thrilled to hear they had made it as semi-finalists when they were nominated for the first time, but they knew their community deserved the highest recognition and amped-up this year's nomination.
"The notable aspect of this year's nomination was highlighting the years of service that a lot of our staff have,” Mrs Hotz said.
"A lot of our staff have in excess of 30 and 40 years of service for Queensland Health, as well as solely at Mundubbera Hospital, and to me that's a unique thing.
"When you ask a lot of them why they have so many years of service in the one place, it's because it's such a good place to work and they enjoy coming to work.”
Next week Margaret Latza, Colleen Crofts and Pamela Ward will be presented with long service awards from Chair of the Wide Bay Hospital and Health Board Peta Jamieson, all three having more than 40 years of service.
Mrs Hotz, who nominated Mundubbera Hospital for the QLD Community Achievement Awards, will travel to Brisbane with four other staff on November 30 to find out which finalist will take first place.
She said the way the team operates is something special and deserved to be acknowledged.
"It's the attitude of the staff and how they treat everyone like a family, what they do for the residents is what they would do for their own family,” Mrs Hotz said.
"They have that human element where they love the residents and that really comes through in their work - the nursing staff go that extra mile and the operational staff always do that little bit more to show how much they care.
Mrs Hotz said her favourite thing about working at Mundubbera Hospital was the staff.
"I'm really privileged and I feel really blessed to have such a good team,” she said.
"It makes my job a hell of a lot easier and you don't get a team like here everywhere.
It's also the wonderful Mundubbera community, it supports its services and it's a great place to live.”
Operating in a rural area, Mrs Hotz said the hospital's biggest challenge was recruiting staff.
"We're going through a phase now where we've got an older work force and it's not just a challenge recruiting new staff but also recruiting staff that have the same values and work ethic as the staff we have,” she said.
"We're going to have that challenge over the next five to 10 years with the majority of our work force being of retirement age here at Mundubbera, but also at other rural facilities.”
The hospital can be voted for in the People's Choice category at https://poll.app.do/2018qcaapoll.
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