[Dr Greg Button - Director of Emergency Medicine OHS]
We've had the opportunity this year to implement the staff wellness, or support dog program. Alot of things are done in hospitals are for the patients.
So we decided to focus on the staff particularly after COVID and all the stress is caused.
To be able to bring dogs in for them to be able to have time out with the dogs on their breaks, take them for a walk, play with them, pat them, but also for those that are going through s particularly bad trauma or something like that, sometimes they just need some time out away from the whole clinical side of it and these give them that opportunity just to go sit down and take that time.
Also with things like going into debriefs or meetings where they may be a bit upset, the dogs certainly then play into that and bring the whole tempo of the room down. The response has been phenomenal, and the staff have just been all over them like a rash.
[Mim Eaton - Oramge ED Nurse Unit Manager]
So we often receive a lot of traffic from our staff, they come into our rooms for meetings or just for general conversations and to have the dogs with us, has just been fantastic.
People are just overwhelmed at how lovely it is to have an ear to pat or a head to stroke. Or if we have to have difficult conversations or someone's had a stressful day and they need to come and tell us about some stuff it is wonderful to have the dogs around to help support those conversations. It's been brilliant.
[Dr Greg Button - Director of Emergency Medicine OHS]
So essentially over the three months we want the staff to interact, we want to see what their experiences are and at the end of that we will run a survey and get them to rate how beneficial they found the program, what they found good about the program, if there is anybody that found anything bad so we can modify if we need to and then depending on those survey results we will sit down with Executive and look at making it a permanent fixture.
[Mim Eaton - Oramge ED Nurse Unit Manager]
There's been a lot of information over the last few years particularly with COVID about staff wellbeing and everyone is very aware of that they want to do that. Protecting themselves, having that chill out times and being able to unwind and it's very difficult to do that in this environment so that's why this idea was brilliant because it was enabling us to bring that opportunity here.
So although the staff initially didn't like the idea they had to come to our offices because they're not to be in clinical areas, that has transpired into it get's me out of the department, it gets me into a safe space where I can just completely tune off and before you know it, they've got a smile on their face and they go back out on to the floor and that's the whole idea of it, to give people an opportunity to give people unwind or debrief about something but in a very safe and supported environment.
[Dr Greg Button - Director of Emergency Medicine OHS]
So Royal Melbourne Hospital ED have had a support staff dog program running since about 2018 and I believe they're up to about five or six dogs. So they have them coming in basically every day of the week for staff to be able to interact with them. So that would be my goal, is to get to what they have and I have already had staff express wanting to enrol their dogs on to the program after the trial. So I don't think it will be long before we build up the numbers, but we will be able to have a different dog each day.
[Mim Eaton - Oramge ED Nurse Unit Manager]
I mean the benefit of animals is phenomenal, you know everything from decreasing anxiety and blood pressure and improving their own wellbeing. People are very happy when they see the dogs on duty, because we have their little photos up in the department, so that has been a wonderful thing.
You know, they've like "Ben is here today, fantastic", you know. Which is great it breaks down those barriers. Because when you sit in a managerial role, although you don't ever try to be someone who is not approachable, sometimes that barrier can build up so having this opportunity with the animals here it really breaks down any of those concerns that people might have that they can't come to us and tell us their problems or anything that is going on in their world which is really great. They are rockstars of the hospital.