Intensive Care Nurse Christine Passlow recently celebrated her 30th anniversary of working at the Buderim Private Hospital.
Mrs Passlow commenced working at Buderim Private Hospital in May 1988 and has worked in the maternity, medical, surgical and cardiac rehabilitation teams, before specialising in intensive care nursing in 2007 and joining the hospital’s Critical Care Unit.
Wallis Westbrook, General Manager of the Buderim Private Hospital, praised Mrs Passlow’s remarkable achievement and thanked her for her contribution in caring for thousands of patients over the years.
“Christine has made an incredible contribution to our local community, especially when you consider how many people’s lives have been touched by her compassion and expertise over the years,” Mr Westbrook said.
“The exceptional care Christine provides to our patients comes from her strong commitment to her work and her passion for learning,” he said.
Mrs Passlow said she feels very fortunate to have found nursing as a career and is proud to don her uniform and come to work each day.
“There are many rewards that come with choosing nursing as a career - it’s moments like holding people’s hands and seeing the family’s faces when their loved one turns a corner and they know they are going to go home,” she said.
“What also feels good is that having been a local for so long, I regularly care for people that I know and when they see a familiar face it gives them great comfort,” she said.
“Through each patient’s highs and lows, I truly consider it a great privilege to be at their bedside.”
Nursing has been a big part of Mrs Passlow’s own family with her mother and sister also nurses. She has also experienced the Buderim Private Hospital’s care for herself when she gave birth to her three children.
In addition to her work at the hospital, Mrs Passlow manages a Queensland under 18 boys soccer team and finds a week each year to volunteer as the first aid officer at the annual Year 11 Immanuel Lutheran College camp to Moreton Island.
As for another 30 years of nursing, Mrs Passlow said: “It’s not the four walls that make a hospital, it’s the people that you work with and Buderim Private Hospital is a great place to work and it feels like a second family to me – it would certainly be hard to leave this family,” she said.
Buderim Private Hospital has been serving the community since 1980 and is part of UnitingCare Health - one of the largest not-for-profit private hospital groups in Queensland which operates more than 1000 licensed beds across four hospitals.