Celebrating our nurses | International Nurses Day 2021

Celebrated around the world on 12 May each year—the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth—International Nurses Day is an important day to commemorate the vital work of nurses around the globe.

Today, on International Nurses Day 2021, we want to recognise, celebrate and thank the incredible nurses across our services.

At Forensicare, we have hundreds of nurses who work across our prison services, community services, as well as in Thomas Embling Hospital. Each and every day, their work–like nurses all around the globe–has a huge impact on the lives of vulnerable people.

Thanking our nurses in prison services

“Nurses are the driving force for our services in prisons,” said Terry Runicman, Executive Director of Prison Services.

“They have a broad range of skills and undertake a variety of roles, from reception, crisis and at-risk responses, to outpatient care, case management, primary nursing and nurse practitioner roles.”

“I am amazed by their agility, flexibility and responsiveness to the changing needs of patients and the system. Their genuine can-do approach to meeting patient needs is inspiring, and their performance during COVID-19 has been nothing short of exceptional.”

Thanking our nurses in the community

Executive Director of Community Services Anthea Lemphers said that while there are only 25 nurses who work in multi-disciplinary teams across our community services, they provide invaluable support for mental health consumers living in the community. This includes our Mental Health Advice and Response team, our Community Treatment and Transition team, our Non-Custodial Supervision Order Consultation and Liaison Program, the Victorian Fixed Threat Assessment Centre, as well as intake roles.

“I want to thank all of our nurses for their utter commitment, tireless dedication and flexibility in adapting the way you’ve worked over the last 12 months,” Anthea said.

Nurses at Thomas Embling Hospital

“It’s not easy to continue to provide services in a pandemic, but even throughout all the challenges, you’ve ensured a high level of support to consumers in need–and I can’t thank you enough for this.”

“Nurses are the cornerstone of Thomas Embling Hospital, and they are second to none,” said Les Potter, Executive Director of Inpatient Services.

“They continually apply themselves with good humour, patience and professionalism–even during times of great change and stress, like COVID-19.”

“Thank you to the nurses across our services. Your work is absolutely vital. It makes me proud to work for Forensicare. I feel privileged to work with such dedicated, passionate people.”

Facing and overcoming challenges: a true testament

Like many health workers, nurses have had a lot of additional challenges to take on over the past 12 months. As vital members of our front-line workforce, nurses–for the most part–were unable to be granted the flexibility of working from home, and experienced even more stress and burnout as our world changed. Yet still, despite it being one of the most challenging times in our collective history–which the International Council of Nurses deemed as a “mass traumatisation” of the global nursing workforce–our nurses continued to provide utterly invaluable mental health support to consumers. That, in itself, is a testament to the dedication and passion of our incredible nurses.

To our brilliant, hard-working nurses: we see you–and we thank you. We couldn’t do it without you.

Happy International Nurses Day 2021!

Interested in a nursing career at Forensicare? Check out our Work With Us page!