The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared 2020 as the Year of the Nurse & Midwife! And at Eve Health – where we have a range of brilliant fertility and specialist nurses – we are excited to celebrate!
We look forward to bringing you a series of profiles on Eve Health’s nurse leaders over the coming months across our gynaecology, fertility, obstetrics and allied health fields. At the end of this article we’ll talk to Eve Health’s Fertility Nurse Samantha Costa, about her role and the impact nursing has in 2020 and beyond.
Our profile interview series complements the Australian College of Nursing’s (ACN) sub theme for this year, “Champions of Change”. “Champions of Change” aims to acknowledge past, present and future nursing leaders, and empower current nurses to expand their knowledge, skills and boost their self-belief.
This year’s overarching theme also honours and pays tribute to the nurses who have worked tirelessly to improve the health and wellbeing of others, making an invaluable contribution to global health care. It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity for everyone to know how much nurses around the world do and how much more they can do with support from everyone.
According to the WHO, nurses and midwives comprise nearly 50% of the world’s health workforce. Today it is estimated that of the existing 43.5 million health workers globally, 20.7 million are nurses or midwives. The ACN reports that by the year 2030 – so only 10 years from now – Australia’s health workforce is predicted to be short by 123,000 nurses.
We hope that some of the profiles on our fertility and specialist nurses will encourages others to pursue a nursing career, and we hope our excitement about this year’s theme rubs off on you too. If you’d like to learn more about this year’s campaign, and share the love about the work of nurses at Eve Health and nurses more globally, visit the campaign website at: https://www.acn.edu.au/2020.
Please read on for insights from Samantha Costa, a Fertility Nurse at Eve Health:
Please introduce yourself and your role at Eve Health
200 years ago a baby girl by the name of Florence Nightingale was born, at the time of her birth no one would know what she would do and how she would change the world of nursing. “The Lady with the Lamp” as Florence was famously known, gave nursing a favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, she was the founder of modern Nursing and someone that nurses like myself continue to look up to and try to emulate 200 years later.
In 2020 I find myself in a nursing role that would not have been conceivable when Florence roamed the corridors in the 1800’s. I am Samantha Costa and I am one of the Fertility and Women’s Health nurses at Eve Health. As with everything in the medical world the Fertility world is ever changing allowing for the role of the Fertility Nurse to grow and evolve as time goes on. Along with supporting women and couples along their fertility journey I am fortunate to have also been able to pursue my love and interest in research, working along side many of Australia’s top researchers in the fertility and endometriosis arenas.
Why did you get into nursing?
People often ask why did I pursue a career as a Nurse and to be completely honest I don’t really know. When I began my Nursing career I did not know what opportunities this world would open up for me but what I did know was that I was a people person, a nurturer and someone that felt a sense of purpose helping those that needed the support. From there I have worked as part of a Heart Lung transplant team, worked as a Medicare eligible Midwife in Rural and Remote Queensland and now within my current role with the Eve Health Fertility team.
What do you love most about being a nurse?
To this day what excites me on a daily basis about being a nurse is the ability to help others in their time of need and vulnerability. It is a privilege to be a part of someone’s journey to parenthood and to be involved in up and coming research to improve outcomes for patients in the future.
What does it mean to be a nurse in 2020?
In 2020 to be a nurse means to have compassion and patience, empathy and sensitivity. It means being there for a total stranger at all hours of the day and all hours of the night. It’s that ability to help keep a patients loved one calm, even in the most stressful of situations. Nurses are leaders. They are communicators and professionals. They are a patient’s confidant and their advocate. Nursing is selflessness. Our patient is our priority through our intelligence, experience and compassion. We are the healing hands that people seek in desperate times.
Thank you to Samantha for taking the time to share her thoughts on what it means to be a nurse in 2020 and beyond. We look forward to bringing you the next profile on Eve Health’s nurse leaders over the coming months across our gynaecology, fertility, obstetrics and allied health fields. Watch this space.
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