 I'm Greg Pollen, CEO of Northern Health, the largest health service provider in Northern Melbourne. Here we go. I'm quite passionate about workplace safety. So Northern has a very interactive way of dealing with workplace safety. We like to teach, we like to learn from people as well. I think I'll learn things as a researcher that I would never learn as a CEO. It's a bit daunting to me, I must admit. But sometimes I feel as though stuck in the corporate office. I'm a bit isolated in an Ivory Tower. So what I hope to do is to get down on the work floor and find out what actually goes on and what can be improved. I'm sure there are practices and processes in place at the moment that can be tweaked to make it safer for staff. I just want to introduce you to Graeme Hart. He's the research tuner. Nice to meet you. Just show basically Graeme how you go about doing all your day-to-day activities, mate. We usually just mop the floors. We just make sure there's a sign around saying people can't slip. Yes. Slip over. And is it normally a problem with wet floors? Is it like slippery? It does get slippery. That's why we put the signs up. Yep. We usually wring it out as much as we can. Yep. The mop. But the nurses usually know that we do it this time in the morning. There's signs up. Yes. So they know. So you can see how many nurses are flying through and this is still actually, this is an hour. Yes. After we're normally finished with this room by now. But yeah, normally this is wet in the morning. Because they've mopped it. It really lasts like five or so minutes. But generally that's the busiest part of the day for that room. But I don't know what to say. No. Schedule is. So maybe there's a reason why they have to do it at that time. And there might not be a reason. It might just be tradition. Yeah, that's it. That's how we start our day. I don't know. But yeah, I don't see why we can't do it. Well, you know, while the room's a little bit quieter and there's less risk. How long have you been here, Michael? Northern? I would have been here 15 years. Is that right? Yeah. And do you enjoy working here? I do enjoy working here. So if we're going to, you know, go to management and say, listen, we've been working with staff and seeing what they're doing. And we think this should happen to make their life easier. Can you think of any one thing we could tell them or probably just maintaining the equipment? Maintaining the equipment. Like the hoist. Sometimes we get a lot of remote controls. We grab them, try to use the hoist in the roof. Doesn't work. And what happens when it breaks down? What do you do? Well, there's an emergency thing that you can try and fiddle with and try and click it on. But if that's not working, it's really, really unhappy. Then you have to go and get the manual on. We've had some issues with our emotes. Our emotes have stopped working. And that took a while to replace. You're always a bit further away from everything when you're down the back, so... How much walking do you think you'd do over? Have you ever used a thermometer and measured how much you did? I did. I'm in my graduate. My first 10 weeks as a grad, I lost 7 kilos because all I was doing was walking. That's awesome. Yeah, you should just be a nurse. And I walked 22 kilometres in a shift. 22 kilometres? That's further than someone runs in a day and playing football. It hurt a lot. And if you're walking 22 kilometres a day, what footwear do you wear? Is there a more appropriate footwear to wear? Can you wear runners? They don't really like you wearing runners. Right. But you're supposed to wear hard top shoes. When I try to buy the right ones with the nice arches and all that sort of stuff, half the time they're so uncomfortable they give you blisters and you can't afford to have blisters in the shop. You have to have comfy shoes at all times. I just need to go up a little bit higher just for you to take your tablets. Now, you're a shift worker. It's a bit like coming back from overseas. You're sort of in a different time zone, aren't you, when you shift between shifts? Yeah, pretty much. So how do you cope with that? There was once where I fell asleep when I was walking to my patient's room as I was walking. Good display. Because I was so tired and that was during my 10 in a row. But, yeah, I had to work 10 shifts in a row and it just kills you. And you just see you're doing late early, so you're getting, because I live about an hour away, I wouldn't get home to about midnight and then you get up at four to go again. And you'll sit down when you can. You'll just, whatever's easiest, just to get the patient where you need them and how you need to do it. So you just shortcut, shortcut, shortcut, just to survive. So we just grab the coyly. The coyly shape? You know, you're not doing anything special with your knees or anything like that? Well, bending's always good and trying to take the pressure off your back. But you're just going to pull him up. All right. Okay. One, two, three. And have you had any injuries in your work life so far that's required you taking time off? Touch word, no. No, not me. But I think if you ask every other nurse here, yes, they have. They're all lifting type injuries, are they? Yeah, all back injuries, pretty much, yes. And do you think your good luck may be something to do with the overhead lifting and the mechanical devices? I think I've just been lucky and probably going on borrowed time at the moment, I would imagine. Goodness. Thank you very much. So what's the most rewarding thing about your job, Kate? Patience satisfaction, I'd say. You tend to think that you've done a bit of a difference to someone's life. That's always probably the best bit. I think that's why you get out of bed. Can you see yourself being a nurse when you're, say, 60? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I just wanted to be a nurse since I was three, so this is the only job for me, unless I get injured. But, um, yeah, no, this is... Hopefully you won't. Yeah, no, I love it. So, yeah, no other job in the world for me. Well, you're obviously a very caring person and you're in the right job, really. I mean, it is known as the caring profession, and you've shown today how much you care about the work you do and how you care about your patients. So that's a real credit to you. I was impressed, genuinely impressed by Kate and Michael and their dedication to their profession and also to this organisation. I think they're great attributes and great examples of what, you know, professional staff in a public health service can actually represent. Hospitals are very busy places. Some things are done for historical reasons rather than because that's the best way of doing things. I learnt as a CEO that I can learn a lot about the organisation from working on the shop floor, going out and visiting, rather than just sitting at my desk and going to meetings and answering the telephone. I picked up on a few things that I'm sure will help the organisation and I think will help staff morale. It's the worst we give a soul in your life. From my perspective, getting out there and listening to you telling quite truthfully what happens has been a revelation. It's good to see that you've come down from the office and there are a lot of people who sit up here. Well, it's... I feel a bit embarrassed I'm not going to be there more often.