Kerin Wheeler is Warrnambool’s longest-serving maternal child health nurse, but she can still clearly recall her first day on the job in Camperdown.
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“They gave me the morning free to acclimatise, and I went back after lunch and opened the doors and I couldn’t believe it, there must have been 20 women sitting in the waiting room,” she said.
“I thought ‘where do I start?’”
Ms Wheeler spent nine years in Camperdown then 27 years in Warrnambool.
She said by the time she retired in 2012 she had seen about a quarter of Warrnambool’s population under the age of 35.
“By the time I left I was seeing the children of the children,” she said.
“It’s nice, you go somewhere, the bank or the chemist, and you’re bound to see somebody that you knew.”
Ms Wheeler said picking up on medical issues and referring people to get help was the most satisfying part of her job.
Ms Wheeler shared her story as the Maternal Child and Health Service celebrated 100 years in operation.
The health service started in 1917 in response to the high rate of babies dying by the age of one – as many as one in every 10 born in Melbourne.
Minister for Families and Children Jenny Mikakos said early years can shape a child’s entire life.
“Our world class Maternal and Child Health Service nurses are the envy of the world,” she said.
