Jane Hellsten’s career has been bookended by pandemics.
She commenced her nursing career at the Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital, which coincided with the AIDS epidemic.
“Fairfield became an infectious diseases hospital. I ended up travelling around Victoria educating people about HIV/AIDS,” Jane said.
“The hospital was a safe haven for people with AIDS. I quickly became used to infectious diseases and looking after those people.”
And almost 30 years later Jane was still looking after people until her retirement last month.
“Who would have thought at the end of my career I end up working through the COVID pandemic?” she said.
“It increased the workload of the Infection Prevention and Control team. We were working seven days a week, getting the results out for people, managing outbreaks.
“Everyone had to learn on the job.”
Always interested in “bugs”, Jane recalls she almost ended up in academia.
“I remember training in the isolation ward at Bendigo Hospital in 1981. Sister Liddy, who was in charge of the ward, had done an infectious diseases course at Fairfield.
“A friend had also done the course, so I thought I’d give it a try. Then I ended up teaching it because I love infectious diseases, and gained a Masters of Education,” she said.
With the closure of Fairfield Hospital imminent and a baby on the way, Jane needed to reconsider her career path. As luck would have it, a position in infection control became available in Bendigo in 1994.
Working as the sole infection control nurse, Jane was responsible for re-establishing the IP&C program. She would later recruit a second nurse, and from there, the department rapidly evolved, as Bendigo Hospital amalgamated with the Anne Caudle Centre.
“We ended up working closely with the Occupational Health and Safety team for a while. There was a real camaraderie there,” she said.
“We then received funding from the state to provide regional consultancy, and we became consultants for the Loddon Mallee region.
“People might think ‘oh, you’ve worked in the same role for so long’ but it was never boring. With Bendigo Health becoming a tertiary setting and a teaching hospital, it was always exciting, challenging and interesting. You just went along with the evolution,” she said.
That ‘evolution’ also included the establishment of the infectious diseases service in Drought Street and significant changes to PPE.
“In the 1980s you went to work in your ‘civvies’. At work, you’d change into a long sleeve uniform to go to the ward. Then when you arrived at the ward you’d change to a short sleeve uniform.
“But there was no such thing as an N95 mask. You wore gloves and a gown, and you might have a surgical mask on, depending on what the patient had,” Jane said.
With many fond memories of her time in IP&C, infectious diseases and the simultaneous evolution of healthcare, Jane will be sad to leave it all behind, but knows her interest in the field will always remain.
“I’ll never stop reading about infectious diseases,” she said.
