Win is no stroke of good luck

By Bridget Brady
ELLIE Walter couldn’t believe she could be rewarded for doing a job she loved so much.
So the 26-year-old was “blown away” to be named as the Southern Health Nurse of the Year recently.
Ms Walter, of Cranbourne, works at the Kingston Centre in a rehabilitation ward for working aged people.
Patients typically are undergoing rehabilitation after a stroke, some learning to walk and talk again.
To watch a patient walk out of the hospital fully recovered was an extremely gratifying experience, Ms Walter said.
“You see people who cannot walk or feed themselves and they go home and you wouldn’t even know they had a stroke. It’s really amazing,” she said.
Ms Walter said one of the difficult things about her job was dealing with emotions when a patient didn’t pull through.
“Some of our patients stay for a year, so you get very close to them and their families.”
But the team at Kingston Centre always supported one another, she said.
Ms Walter said she followed in the footsteps of her mother and sister when she decided to become a nurse.
“Listening to the stories, I just thought making a difference in someone’s life is something I wanted to be a part of,” she said.
And the job was all it was cracked up to be, Ms Walter said.
“I love going to work every single day.”
Ms Walter received her award at Southern Health’s annual nursing and midwifery awards last month, which were held on her birthday.
“It was a wonderful gift,” she said.