Career options

One of the things I love the most about living in the Wide Bay and working for Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service is the community and the family atmosphere.  Every day when I come to work, I come to work for the Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service community, and every day on this floor or wherever I work, that is my family.

Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service was established in 2012, and since that time, we’ve come on a really big improvement journey.  Over time, we’ve worked hard to become one of Queensland’s best-performing health services.

We’re a family here.  We all know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and we look after one another too.  If there’s someone sick or got problems, we try to be there for them and just give a little bit of support.

In 2020, we launched our new set of organisational values and behaviours following extensive consultation with staff.  These values are: Collaboration, Accountability, Respect, Excellence and Through Patients’ Eyes, or Care, Through Patients’ Eyes.

My name is Dr Samuel Darkey, people call me Sam.  I’m the Staff Specialist Paediatrician at Hervey Bay Hospital.  I’ve been working here and I love it.

I love working with a variety of great teams here at the Bundaberg Hospital.  There’s people from all sorts of disciplines, so we’re always learning a lot about each other’s fields.

Moving up to the Wide Bay has really shown me, or given me the opportunity to appreciate more of a lifestyle and a better work-life balance. I came from Sydney where there was obviously a lot more time spent in traffic and rent and property prices were completely out of my reach.

I know the kind of place I want to live.  It’s a place where, you know – I don’t want to live in a big city my whole life.  I’ve lived in New York, I’ve lived in London, I’ve lived in Brisbane, I’ve lived in Sydney. I want to live in a nice place where it’s five minutes to get to work and it’s even closer to get to all the things I love.

There’s very good collaboration between the team and we live actually in the same neighbourhood.  So, you know, if you need any help, especially if you’re on call and you need an extra hand, everybody’s happy to jump in.

It’s a beautiful countryside here, it’s a great little town. Excellent support, it’s friendly. The hospital was really appealing. I had the opportunity to have a look through it, and it’s just a nice mixture.

Compared to my previous work and lifestyle in Brisbane, I used to leave home at 6 o’clock to get to work for 7, and sit at work for another hour before work started at 8.  I could go for three days without seeing my family if I was doing a 12-hour shift. So, this is a lovely work lifestyle balance for anyone with a family who are growing.  It’s a lovely balance.

So, now you’ve heard all about Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service and why it’s great to live here in Wide Bay.  If you want to become part of the Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service family, and are committed to living and working in accordance with our values, and delivering high-quality, patient-centred care, please apply and join us now.

I want our nurses to feel empowered and valued. I want them to have a very strong voice and be strong advocates for their patients. The Wide Bay offers a, a good opportunity, um, to grow your career. Whether you be a, a new nurse, graduate nurse coming straight at university or a a, an experienced nurse that's looking for change.

I commenced work through. Graduate nursing program. Uh, with Queensland Health, I did a six month rotation through pediatric unit. Upon completion of my graduate year, I commenced a position here in Harvey Bay Hospital pediatric unit as registered nurse. I would absolutely encourage anybody that wants to be a nurse in the wide bay to.

To come and do it. It's a great place to work. It's a great place to live. There are just so many different opportunities, um, in nursing and in the wide bay that I don't think you could really go wrong. So we have a great work life balance working here. I'm doing 12 hour shifts and that really works quite well for my lifestyle.

Um, I'm not here as many days, but. You do get to have your downtime at home, and then you get to do the things that you enjoy outside of work. I didn't start my nursing career until quite late in life. Jin Hospital has just helped me expand. They've given me so many opportunities. Uh, you can specialize in a number of different specialties such as pediatrics, i c u, midwifery, um, general medical surgery.

There are a number of different specialties that, uh, you can put your hand up to and specialize in. Working in a smaller hospital rather than being in a big city is a good thing because you get to do lots of different aspects of nursing. Now we have access to telehealth, so you can, um, you can go down lots of different paths.

The Wide Bay HHS is. Happy to go the extra mile to support you in coming and working for us as part of our team. So that might be consideration of assistance with Visa application registrations, relocation fees, accommodation, anything that will help you to come and work for us and be part of our valued team.

So if someone was considering becoming a nurse here in the Wide Bay, I would definitely say go for it. Um, there's great experiences to learn from and, um, there's a really great program here that helps you fit in and become confident and become the best nurse you can be. If you are a nurse who is committed to providing high standards of nursing care and a passionate about delivering care that meets the patient's needs.

Then I want you to come and work with me.

So, what I enjoy most about my role is my ability to deliver really holistic and meaningful and long-lasting interventions to my clients that really make a big difference to their quality of life.

You remember a lot of things in your life, but I think every time you’re in hospital is definitely something that sticks with you. So, you want to make sure that that time there is as okay for that patient as you can.

When you think about the word ‘allied’ in ‘Allied Health’, the clue is in the name.  These are a group of people. They’re allies.  They all work together to deliver the best care that they can. And part of the values of the HHS are ‘CARE, through patients’ eyes’.

Working here in the Medical Imaging department is just fantastic.  It’s a real family.  It can be quite fast-paced and it can be stressful at times, but everyone just jumps in.

Our Speech Pathology team provides services across the hospital setting to both adults and paediatrics.  We work in inpatients and outpatients and we run some really interesting and innovative clinics.

I think we’ve got a groovy little department, and we work across all areas of the hospital here in Social Work.

We work across maternity, paediatrics, palliative care, medical, surgical, rehab and mental health also.

So, my expectation of new members of staff who start here in Allied Health is that they are willing and able to take full advantage of all the opportunities that are here.

If you’ve not worked for Queensland Health before and you’re coming into one of our health practitioner roles, it’s really great to know that actually you get three days per year of professional development leave.  And that’s paid leave.  So, we really encourage our health practitioners to engage in ongoing professional development.

There’s some specific regional training opportunities for Allied Health including the RPEP program, where we can liaise with the metropolitan facilities to make sure that we’re upskilling.

There was only six Queensland Health Speech Pathology positions for new grads offered for my year when I graduated, and the Bundaberg Hospital was one of those ones.  And it really sparked my interest because it was a generalist position, and a two-year contract.

You can come here and have a caseload which is quite broad.  We have positions that move around so that you’re not pigeonholed early in your career.

If you come to work here as a pharmacist, expect to be part of a very close-knit team, which is very supportive of one another. You get a lot of exposure to a lot of different aspects of pharmacy.

Being a part of the multi-disciplinary clinic here at the hospital is fantastic.  We’re able to work alongside each other collaboratively, provide patients with the best evidence-based care and also provide each other with a support network.

Equally in our rural setting, we have a rural Allied Health team as well.  They have a progressive and innovative team.

In each of our rural facilities, we’re working with the multi-disciplinary team, the doctors and the nurses, very closely. But we’re lucky enough that we also link in with our broader professional streams.  So, our team might link in via video conference to in-services on a weekly or monthly basis.  And we have a lot of supports within the team.

I think one of the things that stands out about Wide Bay to me is the community that’s up here.  The environment, the beautiful beaches.  And the opportunities it brings for further career development.

If someone were thinking of applying or coming to work here, I’d say absolutely go for it. And that’s whether you’re a new graduate, just beginning your career, or whether you’re more advanced and progressed in your career.  We would love to have you here.  We would love you to join the team and bring those new ideas and opportunities to better our service.

As a final word, if you want to progress your career, if you want to have some great lifestyle opportunities, if you want to spend more time with your family and your friends rather than sitting in traffic or travelling hours each day, come and work in Wide Bay.  We’ve got a lot to offer.  I think you’ll find it fantastic, and we’re looking forward to seeing you here.

Accessing this service and especially you, Francis, um, oh, has been one of the best things I could have ever had, um, because. If I didn't have you to turn to, um, I dunno where I would've gone. Um, you are there, you're right in front of me, and, and it works. It works just as well as you being in the, prior to this particular development pathway for people to access psychology.

It was very, very difficult. This services really filled a gap and. It is an appreciated service, which is lovely. I know my clients appreciate me. They tell me anyway whether that comes through with the service. I'm not sure. For me, providing a service in our rural area is great because our clients may not otherwise receive that service.

We can make a real difference and we can change someone's life by supporting them through their healthcare need. Her comment to me on feedback was, Francis, he made me happy. And for her, knowing her history, knowing what she'd gone through and was going through, it's in this indescribable how I felt. It was just so.

Yeah, it was the best compliment I've ever received, ever in my life.