The Northern Hospital emergency department (ED) netball team have played their first games as part of a new tournament amongst fellow healthcare workers across Melbourne.
The idea for the 2022 Inaugural ED Netball League – ‘Battle of Melbourne Metro Hospital’s Emergency Department Staff’ – was born during an ED night-shift.
Northern Hospital south pod- CPEU nurse unit manager Hannah Downie suggested to her colleagues that they join the tournament after hearing about it from a fellow ED nurse.
Northern Hospital staff were keen to take part straight away.
The ‘Northern Nightingales’ mixed team play every Thursday night for 12 weeks against ED staff from other health services including St Vincent’s, Austin, Eastern, Western, The Alfred, Royal Melbourne, Epworth, and The Women’s.
“Working in ED, teamwork is such an important part of our roles, which is why my team and I were interested in taking part. The netball team allows us to perform as a team outside of clinical hours, have some fun and blow off steam, while spending time together outside of work – which is always a challenge,” Hannah said.
“ED nurses are competitive, so we thought – ‘game on!’”
Hannah has a keen interest in staff wellbeing, and has been pleased to see how playing sport together outside of work has brought the team even closer together.
“I’ve seen a different side to staff playing netball – it’s allowed all of us to come out of our shell. Having a different discourse than clinical work, the games give us an opportunity to release from the stress of work in a playful setting. It has definitely helped us come together and boosted morale,” Hannah said.
Emergency department operations director Grant Taylor said: “We commend Hannah for her passion of promoting team wellbeing and introducing initiatives to assist her team in ‘coming together again’ after two years of COVID-19 lockdowns, and a very busy and challenging period for ED during this time”.
