Expert nurse steps down

STEPPING back: Te Wiremu House rest home’s clinical services manager Terry Rickard holds a big bunch of flowers presented to her to mark 52 years in nursing. Picture by Rebecca Grunwell

AFTER spending more than 50 years nursing, the past 12 of which have been at Te Wiremu House, registered nurse Terry Rickard has stepped down from her role as the rest home’s clinical services manager.

Aged care has been central to her nursing career, that began in 1968 after training as a community nurse at Wairoa Hospital.

In 1972 she married Colin Rickard and moved to Gisborne to work at Chelsea Hospital in between having four babies.

She had a “memorable year” as a public health nurse liaison in Te Araroa where she was also truant officer.

The two roles worked well together, she said.

“It certainly taught me the value of whanau relationships.

“Sometimes I would make appointments for mums and babies, and the only way we were going to see them is if I went and picked them up. They had no transport.”

An enrolled nurse at the time, Mrs Rickard took on a Bachelor of Nursing degree to become a registered nurse.

After graduating, she and her family holidayed in Lower Hutt, where she visited a rest home that had an outbreak of diarrhoea and vomiting.

The manager asked her “could you start now?” Terry agreed and that decision set the course for her career in aged care.

During her four years at the rest home, she moved from nurse to charge nurse for the hospital wing before becoming the rest home clinical manager.

She also managed a Johnsonville rest home and was clinical nurse on the Kapiti Coast.

After 12 years, it was time to come home.

Mrs Rickard moved back to Gisborne and started working at Te Wiremu House.

“You meet a lot of lovely people and their whanau when you work in aged care,” she said.

“I have had many happy moments and many sad moments.

“As a nurse, you must learn to move on so you can keep providing the care that people need. What makes an excellent aged-care nurse is compassion.

“We get complex cases of people with multiple health issues all impacting on their wellbeing. Unlike hospitals, we have no doctors on staff.

“It used to be that in aged care, you were a nurse and a caregiver.

“Now, aged-care nurses focus on the medical needs of people in their care. Healthcare assistants help with residents other needs. You get very close to residents. Many become like your family. You are more than just a nurse doing her job.

“We step out of our comfort zone. One resident wanted me to dye her hair. She had no one else to do it, so I did. I take residents out for day trips and anything else that makes a difference in their lives.”

In 2014, after 46 years of nursing, Mrs Rickard and Te Wiremu colleague Delores Woodcock were awarded “expert status” from the New Zealand Nursing Council for their portfolios.

“That was a career highlight. We were the first two Anglican care rest home nurses to achieve expert status.”

Mrs Rickard is not retiring, she said, but stepping back from her clinical service manager role to work part-time.

“I want to go out on a good note.”