Verna’s nursing dedication celebrated

BELLARINE Community Health has marked this year’s International Women’s Day by celebrating Verna McLennan, 86, and her decades of dedication to nursing on the peninsula.

When she first arrived in Portarlington, there were no doctors and few health services.

Instead, there was McLennan, a registered nurse who found herself answering knocks at her own door from neighbours in need, even in the final weeks of her first pregnancy.

Her early nursing career was in the operating theatres of Geelong Hospital and relief work with the Bush Nursing service in Drysdale in the 1960s.

In the early 1970s, inspired by the successful establishment of the Queenscliff & District Community Health Centre in Point Lonsdale, McLennan joined the committee of management to give Portarlington a similar service.

Portarlington’s centre was founded in about 1974, and McLennan was there from the start

After years as a member of the fundraising Portarlington Ladies Auxiliary, McLennan said her path into the health centre itself came about almost by chance.

“The district nurse broke her arm, and they rang me up one day and said ‘Could you come and do the round for the district nurse today?”

“She didn’t come back to work for six weeks, so I worked for them for six weeks. Well, that was my actual anniversary date.

“They never took me off the books, but it was another couple of years before I actually applied for and got the position as nursing coordinator.”

She was appointed nursing coordinator at the centre about 1982 – a role she held until her retirement in 1997.

In the early years, the shortage of health services in Portarlington was stark. McLennan recalls being one of the only medically trained people in the area.

In the role, she coordinated services in Portarlington and Drysdale, managed student placements, and oversaw a volunteer program that at its peak included around 400 volunteers.

The district nursing service, she said, was a lifeline for the community’s most vulnerable.

“We had a lot of older people in the community who were quite frail, and it was terribly difficult to get into nursing homes back in those days, and there were a lot of tragic cases around people trying to cope at home. So, the district nurses were really critical.”

Looking back, she appreciated the teams she worked alongside.

“The staff were fantastic, for a start,” she said. “The doctors we had here were wonderful to work with. They were very invested in the idea of community health.”

Her belief in community health remains as strong as ever in her late 80s. She is an outspoken advocate for greater investment in local services.

“Community health and all the things they do are fantastic. District nursing is a massive need, it keeps people out of hospital, out of nursing homes, keeps them in their own homes,” she said.