Patients to receive personalised care
Cancer patient care is changing at Grampians Health’s Stawell oncology unit.
Specially-appointed supportive care nurses are providing individualised patient support before, during and after their treatment.
An oncology supportive care nurse role was made possible through a bequest from the family of the late Lauris Eileen Clark and Grampians Health has trained two Stawell-based nurses to fulfill the role.
One of those nurses, Taryn Sibson is one of many ‘career wins’ for Stawell. She started working in administration and as a ward clerk at Stawell Hospital 14 years ago before training and completing her graduate years at Stawell.
She went on to become an oncology nurse and has worked in Stawell’s oncology unit for the past six years — mainly in a clinical role.
She also works part-time for the Cancer Council in a similar role.
“The oncology unit was initially for treating cancer patients with chemotherapy and immunotherapy who would then go home and come back for another treatment,” she said.
“The supportive care role looks after the wellbeing of patients so the support continues before, during and after their treatments.”
The supportive care nurses can help patients organise transport and appointments and link patients with other services including mental health services.
“So really we’re just working with each individual patient to see what they need support-wise and then tailoring that support to suit them,” Ms Sibson said. “We are providing them with education on their treatments – similar in some ways to a cancer resource nurse role but the depth of support is more involved.”
Stawell Oncology treats 34 regular patients who travel from as far as Donald, St Arnaud and Ararat.
The unit treats patients five days a week, with cancer treatments on Tuesdays to Thursdays. The supportive care nurses work Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
“Previously we didn’t have extra time to sit down and talk to them and see what they actually needed and now with the dedicated staff to do that, we can help them further,” Ms Sibson said.