A career built on care

After 38 years of helping our aging citizens stay in their own homes longer, Sandra Massurit has retired from her role as branch manager at Australian Unity Home Care. Her retirement comes as the Parkes branch celebrated the opening of their new and improved office space at 30 Welcome Street, on 29 September. Sandra initially started with Home Care Service of NSW and says her mother was a major reason why she became a care worker. Sandra said her mother worked as a care worker and when another position opened up, she encouraged Sandra to apply. When she was offered the job, she never looked back. In 2016 Home Care Service NSW came under the Australian Unity umbrella. Along with the name change, Sandra has seen a range of changes herself in the home care sector, with more jobs coming under their purview. "When I first started, really all we did was house-work and the district nurses would do all of the personal care," she said. This eventually evolved to home care workers taking on personal care as well, with the district nurses providing wound care. Sandra said they also slowly took on other roles including respite, meal preparation and shopping. "Aged care has grown as people are living longer," she said. "There's more demand on the system." While the nature of the industry has changed and grown since she first entered it, Sandra said the job was very rewarding, with her co-workers and clients a major reason she stayed in home aged care. Sandra said she is going to miss the people she has worked with over the years the most. While she admitted it can be a challenging job, Sandra recommends people to give the industry a try, particularly if they like working with the aged community. "It's a very rewarding job to do, but it is a very hard job," she said. Some of the challenges of the job includes the physicality of the work which can see workers providing a range of cleaning services for multiple people and it is an uncontrolled environment. "As a care worker you don't always know the moods of clients before you arrive, or you might walk in and discover some appliances may have been left on," Sandra said. But helping people stay in their homes longer, she said, helps them live longer and improve their mental health by being in a familiar place. As she looks forward to a well-earned retirement, Sandra said she plans to enjoy her time setting off on small holidays and will also help out on the family farm.