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Autumn 2004

They Said He'd Never Make It

One day, 19 years ago, Matthew van der Molen had a life changing experience.

Working as a truck driver at an open cut mine on the West Coast, it should have been just another day at work. But it wasn't.

Matthew experienced one of the ultimate fears of a truck driver. He found the truck he was a passenger in doing a backward summersault, going over the edge of an embankment.

When it came to rest, Matthew was badly hurt. A month as a patient in traction, and then a long rehabilitation process introduced Matthew to the medical side of things and sparked his interest in nursing.

Matthew decided he would go to university, with his first choice being nursing. But there was no fairy tale from here.

Apparently, others knew better. Matthew was persuaded away from nursing, towards his second choice, which was aquaculture.

"They said nursing would be too hard for me," Matthew explained.

"So I studied aquaculture, graduated, and was then employed by the aquaculture department at the uni and worked there for a few years, before being made redundant I then got a job in a gas up getting my gas fitters ticket through TAFE.

"I ended up going out on my own as a gas fitter, then buying a security business. "All this time though I really wanted to do nursing."

Then fate again took a hand again. Matthew's niece decided she wanted to do nursing. Matthew watched her progress, thinking maybe he could do it. Maybe it wasn't too late. "I just thought to myself, it's now or never," Matthew said. "My niece challenged me too, saying, "If you don't do it now, you never will!"

With the full support of his wife, Matthew sold his business and headed back to Uni to become a nurse. "At the uni they were offering an accelerated learning pathway, so I did that. I ended up getting my degree in two and a half years. "And it's great. I've absolutely loved it. "I did my post-graduate at St Vincent's.

They didn't have any full time contracts so I went on the casual pool. I also did casual at the LGH.

"I decided medical nursing, rather than surgical, was for me so I applied for a permanent position here on 6D (L.G.H.) and was given the job.

"Truck driver, aquaculturalist, gas fitter, security man. It's an odd pathway for a nurse for sure. But it's fantastic to see a lifetime's dream come true.

Well done, Matthew.

Why Matthew is a HACSU Nurse

Matthew van der Molen is nurse and is on the Public Sector Nurse's EBA Reference Committee.

Matthew's early experience with the dangers of the workplace - when the truck rolled over - underlined his belief in the need for unions.

"If anything ever goes wrong, you'll know why you need a union," Matthew said. "If there's an accident your employer could drop you like a hot potato."

"When I had the truck accident the company was not to pay me. They said they were not responsible for the accident therefore not liable.

"But when the union got involved it was all quickly sorted out.

"They were there to back me up. It was going to be a mess. But the union secretary actually came to see me in the hospital so see how I was and then just organised everything.

"I'm a bit surprised by how apathetic some of the nurses are. The nurses all work very hard and all deserve more money but they rarely turn up for meetings to talk about these things.

"Now that some of the private sector nurses have got some very good pay rises, let's hope that it inspires the public sector nurses to get more involved and turn up to meetings."