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Hello, I’m Elizabeth and I’ve recently retired from Albury Wodonga Health after 50 years of nursing.

My career took me from the country to the city, overseas and back again. I’ve worked as a midwife, a specialist child nurse, and nurse unit manager, with roles in the sexual health team, early intervention and immunisation programs.  I was also coordinator of the Statewide Eye Pre-school Screening Program (StEPS).

It’s a career that almost didn’t happen, had it not been for the determination of my mother. 

I grew up on a rice farm at Coleambally. My father was a farmer while my mother was a nurse. I saw my mum treating patients and I could see the respect that people had for her. That was the inspiration for me to follow a similar path.

When I was 17 my father drowned on the family farm. At that point I was ready to step away from my dream of becoming a nurse in order to stay on the farm and help my mum. But she insisted that I go out and get a career.

After training at the Royal Prince Alfred, I travelled to London for my midwifery training. When I returned to Australia, I worked at Cowra Hospital as a midwife and then did some casual work at Narrandera and Leeton.

It was then that I had an opportunity to move to Albury where I worked with the Child Development and Guidance Unit as a child health nurse. Further training followed before I picked up a role as Nurse Unit Manager for the child health team.

Around that time, I married a local accountant, Harry Flood, and together we had three children - Katherine, Nicholas and Peter. 

I continued my work in child health until 2017 which included time at the Thurgoona Community Centre, which I absolutely loved.

Looking back on 50 years of nursing, I’m most proud of promoting good primary health and supporting young mums with their new families.  

Besides my career achievements, I am most proud of my three children. Katherine and Peter have followed in my healthcare footsteps - Katherine as a speech pathologist and Peter as a disability support worker, while Nicholas is a landscape gardener living in Perth with his partner Shay and daughter, Hazel. 

If there is one piece of advice I would share with nurses who are just embarking on their careers, it would be to make the patient their first priority. Technology has its place of course, but nothing beats the personal touch of a nurse who is caring for a person at a time when they are unwell, in pain, scared or confused. Compassion and empathy are very important.