By Ashley Alasagas
Kathy Gosetti takes each day as it comes. When you are a nurse, there’s no other choice, really.
Kathy is a nurse unit manager for one of the wards at Sunshine Hospital. She oversees 52 patients in palliative care, geriatric evaluation management and dementia evaluation units.
Nursing has always been on the cards for this 33-year-old, an avid watcher of medical TV shows as a child, who doesn’t remember ever wanting to do anything else.
“I’ve always loved working with older people and always liked caring for people,” Kathy says, citing a personal preference for working with patients who have a life-threatening illness.
“You’re giving people the best for them in their last days,” she says.
As a student, Kathy did one of her rotations at Footscray Hospital. She says she knew from the moment she arrived, that was where she needed to be.
“Even if Footscray was further away, I still would have put it down as my first choice because of the atmosphere and the friendly nature of all the staff,” she says.
She spent six years at Footscray following her grad nurse program, before moving to Sunshine Hospital, where she has worked for the past six years. Kathy says she loves seeing how Sunshine has changed over the years.
Kathy credits her team as among her greatest supports. She leads a group of 80 nurses, 20 allied health staff of physios, dietitians, social workers and occupational therapists, and a group of about 20 volunteers.
She says: “You have days where you think, oh my god, this is just too much. But then you’re working in a team environment as well, and everyone is so supportive.”
Tuesdays at Sunshine Hospital are her favourite days, when volunteers hold dance classes for patients. Other days there are singing or arts classes.
Kathy says she has some wonderful moments as a nurse. She recalls one palliative-care patient whose fighting spirit still inspires her. Staff thought she would be there only a week, but she stayed for six months.
Another patient came with a mission to complete her ‘bucket list’, which Kathy recalls as throwing parties and dancing in the corridors. In her month-long stay at Sunshine, she crossed that off her list before deciding to stop treatment. “It’s a hard job, but it’s a great job as well,” Kathy says, “You’ve really got to have your head and your heart in the right place to be a nurse.”
