Hunter returns with top skills

A leading clinician who gained his first management role at Stawell eight years ago has returned to the Grampians Health campus as its first full-time nurse practitioner.

Jarrod Hunter’s extensive nursing and paramedic career began with his graduate year of nursing in Melbourne in 2002 and by 2016, he was working at Stawell as the nurse unit manager of Urgent Care.

Always wanting to further his skills, Jarrod moved to Horsham’s Wimmera Base Hospital to work in the Emergency Department when his partner, a paramedic with Ambulance Victoria, was transferred to the Wimmera capital. It was during his seven years there that he made the taxing commitment to become a nurse practitioner. 

Over a three-year period that included more than 5500 hours of supervised advanced clinical practice and studying for his Masters, Jarrod achieved his goal and was appointed as the ED’s first ever nurse practitioner – around the same time that COVID 19 reached Australian shores. When his partner was transferred to Geelong at the start of the pandemic, Jarrod also moved there. 

Despite calling Geelong home, Jarrod is now happy to be working back in Stawell and residing there for his three 12-hour shifts a week as well as being on-call in between. 

“My husband and I have got family in the region and he is working in Ballarat and the Grampians now so it works out fine for me,” he said. 

Jarrod said he was really enjoying his return to the Wimmera. 

“It feels like a homecoming for me because I’ve worked so much in the Wimmera where even before I was nursing I was a paramedic at Horsham. 

“I love being back working in the bush and it’s also great for the team, rather than having locums coming and going they have a permanent face which is better for the team development and support. 

“What I’ve noticed so far after a month or so is that many things at the Stawell campus are the same but there have been some fantastic changes in the last few years. It’s a brilliant team here with a really supportive group of nurses and allied health professionals along with everybody else. 

“I’m also enjoying the variety in my work, dealing with patients of all ages it’s both challenging and rewarding.”  

Jarrod said the formation of Grampians Health had also generated a lot of benefits for the Stawell team and community. 

“It seems to have centralised things and made access better to larger networks with education, collaboration and clinical support,” he said. 

“Clinical support in particular has been fantastic. Now that we are all part of one team it has made those linkages to clinical support much easier. 

“It’s been brilliant.” 

Grampians Health Stawell campus manager Sue Campigli said Jarrod was an ideal fit for the Urgent Care team. 

“Jarrod’s appointment has ensured that Urgent Care will virtually always have either a medical officer or nurse practitioner on duty to support the team 24 hours every day,” Ms Campigli said. 

“That can provide the Stawell community with confidence that the level of care is safe and responsive to their needs.” 

A nurse practitioner is the highest clinical role achievable for nurses. They can independently assess, diagnose and treat patients under their care. They can order pathology tests, prescribe medicines, refer to and receive referrals from medical and allied health professionals and manage patients in a holistic manner both independently and also collaboratively with medical colleagues. 

“Within the scope of practice of a rural urgent care such as Stawell’s, what a nurse practitioner can do is not too dissimilar to what a doctor can do,” Jarrod said. 

“We’ll stabilise the patient and treat what we can and if the patient is too sick, they will be transferred – and that is virtually the same whether they see a nurse practitioner or a doctor. 

“There’s about six NPs in Ballarat, about half that many in Horsham and I’m the only one at this campus though ideally we would like to have two.”