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HARCOURT VALLEY PRIMARY SCHOOL CHOIR Performances in all
units
Dec 11
CHILDRENS CHRISTMAS PARTY Chewton Swimming Pool &
Reserve
Dec 13
ORIENTATION Dec 16
OP THEATRE CLOSES Until Jan 27
Dec 18
CRC RECEPTION CLOSES Until Jan 3
Dec 25
PHYSIO OUTPATS CLOSES Until Jan 11
Dec 25
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
VOLUME 4 ISSUE 3 DECEMBER 2009
In a world where change seems to be endless and technology seems
to be moving us away further from each other, it is easy to become
confused when you look at all the discussion at Christmas on
commer-cialism, religion, violence and so on. You could easily, if
you let your-self, fill up with overwhelming despair. Then I
reflect on a few simple things that occur in a hospital; where a
kind word is offered without prompting, care given beyond what is
asked for and respect offered without judgement, and I take heart
and see the strength of what is good in humanity still burns
brightly. Just like the lighthouse in the storm we all can take
comfort from the joy of Christmas because we can take the time to
reflect on what is good about mankind; what makes each and every
one of us a good person, one of a loving couple, part a close knit
family and a close community. There are brief moments when we
experience some level of sadness and we recognise that there are
those who are not able to share this with one other. I ask you all
not to let this overshadow you with despair because it is this
awareness, and knowledge that we care and feel, that brings
understanding of the richness of the Christmas spirit. It shows our
enlightenment and the courage of the human spirit and how we invite
all others to be part of our community. Give yourself the
permission to sing carols loudly, and allow yourself to
have the sun shine brightly, have a drink, enjoy food and good
com-
pany and let all that is Christmas give you comfort in all that
is good in
our humanity. Permit Christmas to comfort you and fill your
world with
joy throughout the holiday season. I seek not to sit in
judgement of
your god, your social status or of who you are, rather I ask us
all to
celebrate and make ready for
the coming of a new year.
May it be a better one for every
one.
FROM THE CEO’S DESK
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Helen Minkevicius has accepted the position as Acute Unit Nurse
Unit Manager and will commence this role on 4 January 2010. Helen
comes from the Senior Project Manager role at Castlemaine Health
with a strong background in clinical nursing. Castlemaine Health
has had three graduate nurses this year. They are finishing
officially in January. Two have expressed interest in remaining at
Castlemaine Health. Four new graduate nurses will be commencing in
January 2010 Our third midwife student has almost completed her
student year. She intends to remain at Castle-maine Health on
completion of her studies. Helene Brown is our midwife student for
2010 and she will commence her studies in January. The midwifery
student program has been an enormous suc-cess. Initial registration
of overseas nurses - five overseas nurses completed their time at
Castlemaine Health on 4 December. The program has been very
successful. It has been a wonderful learning op-portunity for our
staff to interact with overseas nurses This is a very busy week for
our Recreational team. Carols by Candlelight are held over three
eve-nings on Penhall, Thompson House and Ellery House. A wonderful
time is always had by all. Maree Matheson PA to DON
NEWS FROM THE DIRECTOR OF NURSING
2
New Equipment for Theatre
Some of you will already know what a Force FX Electrical
Generator is. For those of us who don’t, it is used on a daily
basis with almost every surgical case performed in our Op Theatre.
It stops blood ves-sels bleeding within the surgical site and is a
vital piece of equipment used in all operating suites. The current
unit we have is over 15 years old and requires upgrading to more
improved technology. We are delighted that our submission to the
Collier Charitable Fund has been successful, and that as a result
of a grant from them, we will be purchasing a new unit in the near
future.
GOLDEN BUNDLEGOLDEN BUNDLE Congratulations to Max Culpitt
Morgan, pictured with his mum Bree Culpitt and dad Stephen Morgan
receiving the December Golden Bundle Award from Rob Waller of
Waller Realty and hospital CEO Graem Kelly.
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At the beginning of the year to facilitate more efficiency
several committees were merged. One exam-ple of this is the merger
of the Continuum of Care and Clinical and Risk Management
committees. The result has been a small committee membership
supported by staff throughout the organisation who undertake
audits, reviews and projects to report to the committee. As 2009
draws to a close the following includes a brief summary of some of
the committee’s achieve-ments:
New Procedures approved – 9
Procedures reviewed – 30
Forms approved/reviewed – 6
Documents/resources reviewed – 9
Overseeing of the Long Stay Older Person Project -(now known as
the Aging Well-Living Well Pro-ject). This is a long term project
which aims to improve care for older people. One area of work
cur-rently in progress is the review of admission and referral
procedures within the organisation.
Review of adverse clinical events and medication variances-all
are individually assessed and re-ported to the committee to ensure
steps are taken to ensure there is reduced risk of reoccurrence.
This year the majority of adverse events have been fractures.
Wound care-there has been new wound care products trialled and
approved for use throughout the organisation.
Review of best practice and risk identification information from
external sources-key information sources have been identified and
regularly reviewed (including the newsletter Riskwatch for example)
so that we can learn from other organisations. An example of an
outcome this year was review of war-farin management which resulted
in new care plan formats and introduction of a new system for
check-ing of blood test results with the residential low care.
New formulary items(new medicines)-several have been approved
through recommendation and evaluation of the benefits through the
committee. Outcomes this year has been the inclusion of Desflu-rane
(anaesthetic medication) and Granisetron (drug to reduce
nausea).
Evaluation of customer satisfaction results-results of the
ongoing Victorian Patient Satisfaction Monitor, Midwifery and
Community Aged Care Satisfaction surveys are analysed with action
plans de-veloped for identified issues and decreased results. An
example being increased education provided on privacy principles
following a comment within the VPSM survey results.
Bright Ideas follow up-as a result of a bright idea the
committee implemented that a midwife be in-cluded in the Golden
Bundle Award newspaper picture (when practical) instead of
executive staff. Regular audits are scheduled (approximately 45 for
the year!) and reported as attended. Any audit re-sults (including
benchmarked results coming from the Department of Human Service or
the Australian Council of Healthcare Standards) that come in below
the KPI level set are followed up with an action plan and repeat
audit schedule. This has seen additional work completed in relation
to decreased audit results in the areas of falls and pressure
ulcers. These areas will be a focus for improvement next year. The
above represent a summary of the majority of the work completed.
All staff can access the min-utes on the Intranet on the Committees
Page and I would encourage you to do so, especially if you work in
the clinical areas. I would like to congratulate all members of the
committee on great work achieved this year and wish the committee
all the best for next year. Merry Christmas everyone and all the
best for 2010! Chris Mitchell Quality Projects Manager
SUMMARY OF THE CLINICAL SERVICE COMMITTEE
3
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Infection Control
4
SAFETY BRIEF
The following excerpts are taken from the latest edition of
Safety Brief, which can be found on the occ health and safety page
of the hospital intranet . Bushfire Preparedness Discussions have
continued to take place on the possible risks
posed by the upcoming bushfire season. The expectation from
the Authorities is that this season may well be worse than
last
and, as such, organisations and individuals need to plan and
pre-
pare for the worst (hopefully, everyone who lives in a high
risk
bushfire area, have been actively preparing their own
proper-
ties). Meetings have continued to be held with
representatives
from the CFA, Department of Health, Mt Alexander Shire and
the Department of Sustainable Environment.
All staff are reminded that the decision has been made that in
the event of an immediate threat from a bushfire,
the organisation will adopt a “stay and shelter” position as
opposed to relocation (evacuation). This decision, to
stay or go, has been made following various risk assessments of
our situation and after careful consideration of
all the known facts.
Several procedures and protocols have been developed and were
tested by the way of a full evacuation drill in-
volving the Resident’s from Spencely & Penhall Hostels. A
second evacuation drill was completed involving
Thompson & Ellery House. These procedures will be available
from the intranet in the near future, following a
final review following this last evacuation exercise.
Engineering have completed an excellent job of clearing
away rubbish, undergrowth and non-native vegetation on the
northern end of the grounds and around the three
houses at the top of the hill.
CODE RED (Catastrophic):
If you live in a bushfire prone area the safest option is to
leave the night before, or early in the morning.
EXTREME: The safest option is to leave early in the day if you
live in a bushfire prone area and your Bushfire Survival Plan is to
leave. Only stay if your home is well prepared, well constructed
and you can actively defend it.
SEVERE: The safest option is to leave early in the day if you
live in a bushfire prone area and your Bushfire Survival Plan is to
leave. Only stay if your home is well prepared and you can actively
defend it.
VERY HIGH: If you live in a bushfire prone area and your
Bushfire Survival Plan is to leave, the safest option is to leave
at the beginning of a day.
HIGH: Check your Bushfire Survival Plan
LOW–MODERATE:
Check your Bushfire Survival Plan
National Fire Danger Rating Scale Victoria recently adopted the
new nationally agreed Fire Danger Rating scale (see below) to help
communities un-
derstand information about fire danger. This revised fire danger
rating scale includes a Code Red or Catastrophic
rating. On days which are deemed to be Extreme or Catastrophic
(such as Feb 7th this year), pre determined plans
are to be implemented in preparation of a possible bushfire
impacting the facility.
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Compulsory training for next year has been finalised and we will
be informing managers of the re-quirements early in the New Year.
They will be required to ensure staff are made aware of what
edu-cation needs to be undertaken by the end of June 2010. We have
tried to limit sessions to the most important topics and are
continually reviewing new ways to assist staff to access the
sessions eas-ily. This is a difficult task and I know that you all
understand the difficulties catering to a busy 24 hour
organisation. Thank you for your interest and we look forward to
seeing you at sessions next year. Sessions on ‘Advance Care
Planning’ are underway in all clinical areas and the interest from
the staff has been great. So make sure you go to one of the
sessions over the next few weeks. These ses-sions will be of
interest to all staff and not just nurses as planning for the
future is just as important for ourselves and our families as well
as our clients. All are welcome. The year is ending and plans are
well underway for next year. We have had several education
ses-sions in December with outside presenters all keen to impart
their knowledge before Christ-mas. Thank you to all who have
attended sessions we have organised this month and throughout the
year. In the coming weeks we will be encouraging you to give us
feedback and to give us ideas on what you would like for next year.
The topics we choose and organise can only be as good as your
input, so please have a think and provide us with some feedback.
Nursing Education Programs Our team would like to take this
opportunity to again thank all staff for their enthusiasm and
friendli-ness towards our students and graduate nurses. Your input
has helped us build up an organisational reputation for being
friendly and helpful to all students as they complete clinical
placements here at Castlemaine Health. Best wishes for the
Christmas season. Stay happy and healthy (and safe) From the Staff
Development team Evita Ferguson (HR), Andrew Lewis, Fiona Moait,
Helene Gerber and Linda McKenna
EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIT
5
I want to take this opportunity to thank all staff again for
their patience, perseverance and persistence while we work through
the implementation of the Oracle Finance/Supply system. It is also
a useful time to reflect on what else has been achieved that have
impacted our processes. Along with the new financial system we have
changed the name of the hospital and changed over bankers to the
Bendigo Bank. Supply have reviewed the stock items and culled a
number of items. Those in the Aged Care area have continued and
almost completed the implementation of Manage-ment Advantage. We
have introduced an on-line ordering system throughout the
organisation (Oracle). Theatre, Acute and Rehab are now working
towards looking after their own imprest. If you feel tired at this
time of year you probably deserve to feel tired. With a new Patient
System and Rostering System still to come there is still more work
ahead. Take this time to reflect on what has been achieved and on
the tremendous effort made by so many. Thank you to my excellent
team for their help and support during all the changes. I wish you
all a very merry Christmas and a very happy New Year.
Geoff Vendy Director of Finance
ORACLE FINANCE/SUPPLY SYSTEMS
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6
THE HOSPITAL CHRISTMAS QUIZ
I wouldn’t like to suggest that anything about our Castlemaine
Health is trivial, but just how good is your background knowledge
of the various parts of our beloved hospital? 1. What is the
missing word: “To provide the most _________ and efficient
physical, emotional and social care possible to those for whom we
are responsible.” 2. What project had its official opening by The
Honourable Bob Cameron on 31st October 2008? 3. Goodness knows how
many times you may have walked past them or on them - what colour
is the carpet on the stairs up from Reception in the main hospital
building? 4. If you have applied an adequate amount of alcohol hand
rub to all surfaces of your hands, at least how many seconds should
it take to dry? 5. What is the 3rd part of the 3 bite rule? 6.
Where in the hospital is the Christmas tree shown on the front page
of this newsletter? 7. On the 1st of which month this year did our
Smoke Free policy come into effect, and are there any exceptions?
8. The Castlemaine District Hospital was located in which street
from 1939 to 1995? 9. The Geroe Acute Unit was named after Dr
George ______ Geroe. 10. How many requests for information did the
hospital receive under the Freedom of Information Act, during the
2008/2009 period? 11. What devilish number do you dial to access
your voicemail? That’s pretty easy so how about which numbers you
then press to check new messages, review old messages, delete, and
repeat messages? 12. Where is this artwork (pictured on the right)?
Extra points for naming the work and the artist. 13. How do you
spell “asbestos”? Just kidding. When did Connoly Rehab move to
Tolstrup this year? 14. Another picture question. You can see
Santa’s bum disappearing into a fire-place in Thompson House later
in this newsletter. Where else in the hospital can you see a
similar view of Santa, but upside down (at least until after
Christ-mas)? 15. Just what does imprest mean, in this hospital,
anyway? a) Something impressive. b) a system for supplying a fixed
number of a known list of items. c) a system of supplying any
number of any re-quired items. d) I want it to be c but I suspect
its not. Answers are on the back page, but see how many you can get
before turning there! Answers are ar-bitrarily defined by the
author, and no discussion will be entered into, unless its over a
cup of tea and involves chocolate biscuits. Its for fun, after
all!
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Carols by Candlelight another success
7
We are truly fortunate to live in a community which combines a
wide talent base with a genuine en-joyment in sharing. Once again,
both musicians and audience had a ball at our traditional Carol
con-certs, held in three installments in Penhall, Ellery and
Thompson House, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 8-10th
December.
David Brennand (our previous head of Engineering) directed the
musicians and audience, and gave the benediction. The Thompson
Foundry Band put in their customary excellent show, ably
accom-panied by audiences not shy about putting their best vocal
foot forward, if you’ll pardon the mixed im-age. The Blenders, a
women's singing group from Castlemaine, accompanied by harpist
Allen Evans sang for the Penhall evening, the Castlemaine Singers
treated us at Ellery, and David Brennand with
friends Anne and Roz sang a few solos them-selves, accompanied
by David’s mandolin.
Each evening ended with a won-derful supper, and a chance to
mingle and chat. Thanks to Lyn and the Rex Team again, and all the
staff who help our residents
enjoy these func-tions.
“My old man said follow the band”… it’s a popular misquote, but
we all had a lot of fun doing exactly
that. David, Anne and Roz are on the right.
Harpist Allan Evans delighted the Penhall audience.
Allan plays harp, flute, whistles and sings with the
group Shanachie, which recently won the Paddy
O’Neill Young Award for 2010. Here he accompa-
nies The Blenders (left) at Penhall.
Penhall residents singing along.
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8
The Ellery audience and guests.
Carols continued...
Heather Harris & Ralph Street
setting the finishing touches to
the post-vocal feast at Thomp-
son House.
Spot the elves in the crowd at Thompson House.
The Castlemaine Singers caroling at Ellery House.
There goes Santa.
An irresistible overheard pun:
The big guy in the red suit is coming and already I'm shedding a
tear. I'm just too santamental.
Comfy chairs in the back row.
Thompson House’s “touchy feely” Christmas table.
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9
SCHOOL VISIT
Friday 11th December saw visitors from the Harcourt Valley
Primary School performing a group
of songs from yesteryear (and a final Christmas carol) at all
our residential units. The primary
school children also spent some time conversing with the
residents after the performance, about
the songs themselves, and the memories that they evoked.
Our grateful thanks to Katerina Hood and her students for
their work in putting this visit together, and particularly
for
the thoughtfulness in taking the time to chat afterwards.
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10
December is the month for Christmas activities around the units
and here is even more evidence that we are blessed with a generous
community who don’t forget our elders at this time of year and come
in droves to share the Christmas spirit.
More Snippets from the Recreational Team
A Christmas movie starring Jimmy Stew-art at the monthly
Metcalfe movies run by the shire for senior citizens. A beauti-ful
afternoon tea was provided.
UPCOMING ACTIVITIES –
Salvation army band will perform at all units nearer to
Christmas. Winters Flat Prep and one class come to visit residents
at Penhall on Wednesday 16
th Dec.
This year’s annual St Marys Christmas pageant and afternoon of
performance for senior citizens rather strangely included a tap
dancing gorilla, along with a more traditional Princess.
one of the residents from Penhall catches up with a friend at
the St Marys concert.
There are few things more Christ-massy that the children’s
pageant.
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11
Christmas is about celebration, not deprivation so is it
possible to have a great festive season without getting
to 2010 and feeling like all your clothes have shrunk in the
wash?
Research shows us that many of the situations around Christmas
encourage us to eat more; long meals,
fridges full of leftovers, plates full to the brim, too many
nibbles at parties, and its too hot to exercise!
Here are 12 tips to survive Christmas from your friendly
Dietitians at Castlemaine Health...
Watch out for those food traps – such as lots of dips, nuts,
cheeses, cabana – position yourself away
from the platter!
Pace yourself – go easy on each course and try to eat a little
slower
Don’t be afraid to leave a little on the plate – take note of
when you feel full
If you know you are going to have a big evening meal – have a
smaller lunch of fruit or salad to balance
out the extra food later
If you really want to taste something delicious as its too good
to pass up then try the 3 bite rule – 1 to
taste, 1 to enjoy and 1 to say goodbye
Watch out for those extra drinks –alternate an ice cold water
between drinks and use diet mixers in-
stead of sugar laden ones
Offer to drive someone and don’t drink much
Drink some water with your meal or have an extra salad to fill
you up
Go for a walk after eating rather than a sleep – you will feel
better!
Watch out for buffets as they can be a licence to overeat
Dark chocolate is rich in antioxidants so buy individually
wrapped ones and enjoy slowly
Indulge in some lovely frozen fruit over the Christmas period-
try freezing cherries, strawberries, or-
anges, bananas or grapes for a lovely refreshing treat
But most of all have a safe and happy Christmas, and if you
over-induldge be kind to yourself
and set some realistic goals in 2010.
From Sally, Jana and Emma – Dietitians
EAT, DRINK & BE HEALTHY - TIPS FOR SURVIVING THE FESTIVE
SEASON
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THE BACK PAGE
Dashing through the bush, in a rusty Holden Ute, Kicking up the
dust, esky in the boot, Kelpie by my side, singing Christmas songs,
It's Summer time and I am in my singlet, shorts and thongs Oh!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way, Christmas in
Australia on a scorching summers day, Hey! Jingle bells, jingle
bells, Christmas time is beaut !, Oh what fun it is to ride in a
rusty Holden Ute. Engine's getting hot; we dodge the kangaroos, The
swaggie climbs aboard, he is welcome too. All the family's there,
sitting by the pool, Christmas Day the Aussie way, by the
barbecue.
Oh! Jingle bells…. Come the afternoon, Grandpa has a doze, The
kids and Uncle Bruce, are swimming in their clothes. The time comes
'round to go, we take the family snap, Pack the car and all shoot
through, before the washing up. Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells,
jingle all the way, Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers
day, Hey! Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut!, Oh
what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute. Traditional/Colin
Buchanan © 1992 Rondor Music.