Elena McQuillen

Nurse Manager, Casual Staffing Office

St George Hospital

“We manage and supply casual staff to all areas across St George Hospital. It’s broken down into a variety of positions, from AINs (Assistants In Nursing or undergraduate students), right up to registered nurses, enrolled nurses and registered midwives.  In my role, I do all the recruitment for the casual pool, and we are constantly recruiting.

As a centralised casual pool, we are covering long and short term relief and all sick leave calls. The hospital depends on us and our ability to allocate appropriately skilled staff. There’s always patients, so we need to ensure that our areas are appropriately staffed to provide the right care at the right time.

My current role gives me the opportunity to work with the AINs, where they have that motivation and passion, but they’re not sure what the world has got to offer them. I’ve seen so many of my AINs take on positions and bloom. Seeing them succeed gives me great job satisfaction and it empowers me to keep going.”