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Forty-eight years in a single career is an achievement by any standard, but to clock up that length of time as a registered general and obstetric nurse (NZRGON) probably demonstrates that, for Paddy Sullivan, it was more a vocation than a job. She remembers the days when patients were allowed to smoke in their rooms but flowers were removed at night because they “sucked up the oxygen” and fathers-to-be weren’t allowed anywhere near delivery rooms. She told Jannette Thompson that although times have changed, some things never will …
There have been many wonderful advances in medicine since I started nursing at 17, fresh off the farm in Tomarata. Keyhole surgery, MRI and CAT scans, pain pumps, electronic monitoring and hoists for lifts are just a few that spring to mind. But what doesn’t change is people’s basic need for compassion and care when they are ill. When you’re a nurse, there is no getting around the fact that you have to be able to look, touch, listen and even smell people to really understand what’s going on. You can’t use a computer or the internet to make a proper diagnosis. My Irish mother’s Claddagh Ring sums it up – our head holds all our academic knowledge and memories; our hands represent how we deliver care; and the heart speaks for itself. If I ever find that my heart is no longer part of what I do, I will know it’s time to retire.
My parents, Tom and Katie Mulligan, were born on either side of the Irish border – Mum in Clones and Dad in Roslea. Times were hard so in 1926, when he was just 17, Dad headed for New Zealand with 30 shillings in his pocket. He went down the mines at Huntly and earned enough to buy a small farm in Te Kauwhata. He was 41 by the time he thought he had enough to support a wife and family. He returned to Ireland, married Mum, brought her to NZ and they bought a 300-acre dairy farm on Ocean View Road, Te Arai. That’s where my older sister Rosie and I were raised. Dad and Mum encouraged and assisted most of their brothers and sisters to emigrate to NZ.
I’d say my childhood was pretty typical of most farming kids at that time. There were always jobs to do, like milking the cows or feeding the pigs, calves and chickens. After Tomarata School, I went to Wellsford High School where I played hockey, competed in athletics and had a crack at just about anything. Career options for girls were pretty limited, so although I’d finished sixth form and passed my University Entrance, I decided to follow my sister into nursing. Dad took me to Auckland to buy what he saw as the essentials – a suitcase, a nurse’s watch and a raincoat – and in April 1970 I started as a student nurse at Middlemore Hospital. He dropped me off with two pieces of advice: “Don’t give up when the going gets tough because wherever you go, the same thing will happen” and, “Don’t spend your last dollar until you know where the next one is coming from”.
The nursing system was hierarchical and there were strict rules. On our first day, we were given uniforms, name badges and those damn hats that were a mission to keep on while performing our duties. We wore white stockings, white shoes and blue capes, as opposed to the qualified nurses who wore red, and we had to eat in a separate area in the dining hall. After three months in the classroom learning some basic anatomy, physiology and nursing skills, we were rostered on to full shifts in the wards. It was nothing to do a 10-day stretch or a ‘short change’, where you finished at 11pm and started again at 7am. We changed bedpans, gave bed baths, brushed people’s teeth, monitored IVs, distributed meals, gave injections, changed dressings, took blood pressure, monitored bowel movements, delivered babies and laid out the dead, as well as studying for written and practical exams.
Life on the farm stood me in good stead during those three years because I understood that, try as you may, there are some things you just have to accept. I’d seen animals die despite our best efforts to save them and it had built resilience in me, which I’m very grateful for. Nurse training was hard work, but it was also the start of some lifelong friendships, and the skills I learned have enabled me to help people, often at critical times in their lives.
Denis and I met at a parish dance in Wellsford when I was 14. We were married in August 1973, just four months after I graduated, when he was working as a loader driver for a top dressing company. When I moved back up north, Dr Chris MacKenzie offered me a position as the practice nurse at the Wellsford Medical Centre, working alongside him and Dr Jack Gray. It was a new position and a wonderful opportunity. The doctors worked five days a week, and alternated the evening and weekend on-call service. We were based in the two-storey doctor’s house, opposite Matheson Road, and in those early days there were no appointments. The doctors dealt with everything from sports injuries to farm and industrial accidents, to even delivering babies in the surgery on occasion. It was an advantage to have grown up locally because I understood what was appropriate and what wasn’t. For instance, telling a mother who has children to get to school, meals to prepare, a house to clean and jobs on the farm to attend to, to rest and keep her leg raised for three hours a day probably isn’t going to happen. The routine got a little easier for the doctors when Bill McBeath and Phillip Barbour joined the practice, and then eventually Dr Tim Molloy. But, after 17 years I decided it was time for a change, plus I had three children by then – Brett, Kelli and Patrick.
I worked for medical practices in Orewa and Warkworth before being appointed team leader for the Totara Park Day Programme, which offered socialisation and carer relief for older people. It was an important service and I worked with some wonderful volunteers. As it was only one day a week, I also worked at the Warkworth Birthing Unit as a postnatal care nurse and was involved in two district-wide vaccination programmes. We did schools as small as Pakiri through to Rangitoto College. My work during this time showed me again that people need nurturing at both ends of life – birth and old age.
But in this youth-focused culture, it’s the elderly who are sometimes forgotten. If you are old, in poor health, with limited financial means and minimal family support, then life can be pretty tough. People are living longer, but not necessarily better. I was the Alzheimer’s nurse educator for Rodney for five years and I currently work with people with Parkinson’s and their carers in a similar support and education role.
I’ve been on the executive of a couple of health organisations, but I’m really not cut out for that role. At the meetings, we’d go over the same things again and again, reports would get written (and often go unread), we’d restructure, write another mission statement, talk about a vision, call in consultants and still get nothing done! We’re creating jobs, not just in health but everywhere, for people with titles as long as your arm who don’t actually achieve anything. We have more people ‘talking’ about it at considerable cost and less ‘doing’ it. Patients are often over-assessed and services under-delivered.
There’s a real lack of interconnectedness among health services, which is more about plans and processes than actually making sure that Mum gets a bath when she needs one. Family has always been a huge part of my life, from the days when my Irish aunties and uncles came over for a meal and a sing-a-long to the time I now share with my 13 grandchildren. Denny and I will celebrate 45 years married this month – it’s probably helped that we’re both from Irish Catholic stock, with the same values and commitment to make it work. It might be the modern way to always want the newest model, but we come from an era when you fixed things and kept them running, and didn’t throw them out until they stopped altogether. I’m not sure that’s quite the right analogy for a marriage, but it has worked for us.
