NURSES from South Gippsland Hospital got together for a fun filled night of trivia this week to celebrate International Nurses Day.
The day is celebrated globally every May twelfth and is the anniversary of Florence Nightingale's birth.
Claire Kent, Director of Nursing at South Gippsland Hospital (SGH) and organiser of the event, which a third of staff attended said,
“It was great to be able to actually get together, physically last night to celebrate the last few years, because we've been limited with being able to do that.”
This year’s theme for International Nurses Day is: Our Nurses. Our Future. 
Claire said that the nurses have endured tough conditions over the last few years and have had to manage many unique challenges that smaller regional hospitals face.  
“Currently, it's pretty tough, the environments tough, the shortages, the demand for health care is rising and the supply of nurses is very challenging. It's a hard job and challenging to attract people to it and then once we do get them, sometimes it's challenging to keep them.”
“We have got a fairly stable workforce, but a third of our workforce are over the age of 55, and so that, in itself, physically, can be a challenging job.”
However, Claire is positive about the future of nursing and nurses at SGH, as time and effort has gone into nurturing their current work force of about 70 nurses, and strategies have been put in place, with support from the government, to attract and keep nurses at SGH, or to return after postgraduate studies. 
“We've really got a good grow our campaign going. We've doubled the number of graduate nurses, we've got four this year, which is amazing for our size organization. We only had two, the previous few years and before that, we only could manage one.” 
“For the first time last year, we started employing undergraduate students of nursing, so registered undergraduate students of nursing we call them or RUSONS and that's a government funded program where we can actually pay students of nursing to support our team in the environment in the acute ward. That’s been enormously successful.”
“The other really important thing, because we deliver babies here (we're very lucky that we've got that for a small rural health service), we've got student midwives as well and we've got two student midwives at the moment, and next year we'll be able to take on at least one new first year midwife.” 
“In addition to our Maternity service, the South Gippsland Hospital has an acute ward, surgical service, urgent care centre and a vibrant community nursing program, inclusive of district nursing, day centre respite and specialty nursing streams. We want to create an environment where we give nurses a really good start, and then encourage them to stay within the profession in whatever way they choose”.
Claire had been part of the team for three years now and said SGH is one of the best places she has worked.
“It is a unique, very special place, and that's because I think, it's a combination of the culture, the teamwork, the size; the community just love the hospital and we're very lucky and supported by the likes of the auxiliary and the volunteers; and the patients are just so grateful that they can get care as close to home as possible.”
“It can be extremely satisfying, and we're very proud of the contribution we make to the health of our community,” she said.