The first glimpse at Sue gives you an insight into the type of per­son she is. Her glass­es, shirt and lip­py all in a match­ing shade of bold, bright red feel like a phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of her pas­sion, dri­ve and energy. 

Sue start­ed relief nurs­ing at Swifts Creek Bush Nurs­ing Cen­tre near­ly 28 years ago, and it changed ​“absolute­ly every­thing” for her. Com­ing from work­ing in a hos­pi­tal ED where she had sup­port from oth­er staff, she quick­ly realised that at the bush cen­tre, ​“you’re it”. After 15 years of reliev­ing, she took over the role of Bush Nurse Manager.

Bush nurs­ing cen­tres are a unique mod­el. They’re pri­vate not-for-prof­it organ­i­sa­tions that aren’t affil­i­at­ed with oth­er health organ­i­sa­tions. Each indi­vid­ual bush nurs­ing cen­tre is also unique, and the ser­vices it pro­vides to the local com­mu­ni­ty depend on the qual­i­fi­ca­tions and skills of the nurs­es it employs. 

“We also go out for ambu­lance call­outs in our area, so we’re first respon­ders until we can get an ambu­lance there to trans­fer them,” Sue says. 

“Even though we’re not remote like the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry or oth­er places like that, because we’re up in the moun­tains in Vic­to­ria there is a delay and we haven’t got an emer­gency depart­ment close by.”

His­tor­i­cal­ly, bush nurs­ing cen­tres were set up with funds raised by local com­mu­ni­ties, and are still man­aged by com­mu­ni­ty com­mit­tees today. Sue explains that she receives par­tial fund­ing from the Depart­ment of Health now, but works hard to secure addi­tion­al fund­ing else­where to ensure she’s pro­vid­ing the care her com­mu­ni­ty needs.

Whether it’s to put a defib­ril­la­tor down at the gen­er­al store, to pur­chase med­ica­tions, dress­ings and equip­ment for ambu­lance call­outs, to run health infor­ma­tion nights for women, men or new par­ents, or to refur­bish the cen­tre with a lick of paint and new floor­ing – if it needs doing, Sue will find a way to make it happen. 

“I try to find what­ev­er extra fund­ing I can,” she says. 

And as if this doesn’t keep her busy enough, Sue is also in the mid­dle of plan­ning an impres­sive cap­i­tal project to ben­e­fit the old­er gen­er­a­tions of Swifts Creek.

“There’s no hous­ing for elder­ly peo­ple in this area. So many have sold up and moved and then said, ​‘I wish I nev­er left. I have left my com­mu­ni­ty and all my con­nec­tions,’” Sue explains. 

“There was a block of land up here, and I said to our com­mit­tee of man­age­ment that we need to buy it and we need to build units for over 65s, like a retire­ment vil­lage. When they can’t man­age their homes or farms any­more, they can move in there. 

“So we had a com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing and told the com­mu­ni­ty what we want­ed to achieve. I con­vinced the com­mit­tee to pur­chase it, because we had enough mon­ey that we could buy it, but we have to try and get fund­ing to build these units. We’re still work­ing on it.” 

No mat­ter how much work it may be though, Sue loves serv­ing her community. 

“It’s all about the health and well­be­ing of these peo­ple, and keep­ing them as safe as possible.” 

“The thing I love most is know­ing that I can make a dif­fer­ence in people’s lives, and that’s what it’s all about.” 

Sue admits she has con­sid­ered head­ing into retire­ment, but there’s one thought that pulls her back. 

“I’ve still got too much to do.”