Crystal Swire has experienced and been the beneficiary of both sides of Saskatchewan’s health-care system.
First, she has been a nurse. She started her career 37 years ago in Ontario, taking a few maternity breaks to be a mom and nurse to her three children.
She finished her Ontario career in Fort Francis, serving in acute care and emergency care for 13 years.
Then came the Saskatchewan call, and a move she has never regretted.
In 2012, she accepted a position as an operating room nurse at the Pasqua Hospital in Regina. Her time there was minimal, as big-city life was not really her thing. Three months later, she left to work in Carlyle’s Moose Mountain Lodge and in the Arcola Health Centre.
A great opportunity opened up for her in Saskatoon at St. Paul’s Hospital. As a result, Swire found herself on the move again in 2016. For nine years, she worked in the emergency room, but she found herself increasingly longing for work in long-term care in a more rural location. One of her married daughters was living in Redvers, along with their daughter. Swire began thinking of life around Redvers to be closer to her family and to get back into rural living.
She became aware of an opportunity in Carnduff, not far from Redvers. She applied and on Feb. 3, she became Sunset Haven’s new director of care. She was extremely happy about this, as this enabled her to work in a long-term care setting, to live in rural Saskatchewan and to be closer to her daughter’s family. She currently lives with them.
That’s one of the sides of Swire's experience with Saskatchewan’s health-care system. The other side is that she has been a patient.
In 2017, she was diagnosed with cancer. She underwent treatment for over a year and in 2018 was given a clean bill of health. She is thrilled about 小蓝视频 a cancer survivor. Her experience in dealing with the dreaded disease has given her additional expertise and compassion as she interacts and works with people who suffer from medical conditions.
Being on the other side of health care has made her an even better nurse.
It's one of the reasons why long-term health has such an appeal to her. She is able to interact with people in her care and their families on an ongoing basis. She is able to develop long-term relationships with them – a contrast to working in emergency rooms where people are in her care for short periods of time.
Her experience on both sides of health care have opened up opportunities for her. For instance, on April 1, she was invited by a professor at the University of Saskatchewan to speak to medical students about issues like compassion in the world of health care.
As Sunset Haven’s director of care, she is able to spend about 80 per cent of her time interacting directly with residents of the home and their extended families, providing counsel, compassion, assurance and comfort. As well, she is able to provide support for the staff as they care for the residents.
Swire finds her work very rewarding, although it comes with its “sad days”. Often, the rewarding moments and the sad moments occur at the same time. Sadness as she watches individuals and families struggle with the decision of having to enter a long-term care facility, and joy as she assists in helping to make those decisions easier.
There are many other aspects of her new role that she enjoys. She has found the board to be great to work with and she is appreciative of the woman in the room next door, Linda Audette, who serves as Sunset Haven’s administrator. Her role as director of care enables her to spend time doing floor work - helping to feed residents, assisting in changing them and administering medication every Friday.
She attempts to provide help to staff in the long-term care wing whenever she can. She is thankful that she in not bound to her desk doing paperwork.
