BARRHEAD - All through high school Linda Klufas wanted and planned to become a teacher, but at some point in her Grade 12 year, the Wainwright native started to have second thoughts.
"Both of my sisters were in nursing training, and I thought it might be a good path for me as well," she said.
So when she graduated from high school, her parents paid the $125 all-inclusive tuition that included everything from books to room and board for the entire length of the three-year nursing program at the Royal Alexandria Hospital in Edmonton.
"It was a cheap but good education," she said. "The training wasn't like it is today. It was all hospital-based, with classes two days of the week and the rest of it spent working on the wards. Student nurses were a bit like slave labour. They really depended on us to make the hospital run."
Slave labour or not, Klufas is glad she did it. Because if she hadn't, she would not have had the career she did. Late last month, at the Barrhead Healthcare Centre, Klufas worked her last shift as a registered nurse, bringing an end to a 50-year career.
"I have no regrets about getting into nursing. It is a great profession, and I enjoyed it immensely, but it was time," she said.
The Barrhead Leader spoke to Klufas a few days before a celebratory Oct. 2 party at the Seniors' Drop-in Centre.
At first, when her husband Wayne suggested the celebration, she was hesitant, noting people usually only get together in a large group to mark sad occasions, such as a funeral, adding people need to celebrate personal achievements.
"And 50 years is quite a milestone," Klufas said, adding she is one of the few who worked 50 continuous years, without taking time off for sabbaticals, raising a family, et cetera.
In her illustrious career, all of it being in Barrhead, Klufas has worked at the Barrhead Healthcare Centre and the W.R. Keir Care Centre. She also worked as an EMT on ambulance crews, volunteered for 12 stints as an operating room (OR) nurse with Mercy Ships, and delivered 36 babies solo.
Mercy Ships is an international charity that provides numerous services, including healthcare, to people in need in more than 50 developing countries, utilizing a hospital ship docked in a port city of whatever country the organization is helping.
Coming to Barrhead
Klufas graduated from her nursing program in 1972, applying for jobs in two locations, the first at the Royal Alexandria and the other in Barrhead.
"I just took a map and tried to pick a spot that would allow me to visit my folks and still relatively close to Edmonton," she said. "And there was a girl from Barrhead who said it was a nice place, so I guess that is why I picked it over other possibilities."
Klufas was offered a full-time position in Barrhead without having to interview. At the time, the hospital, St. Joseph, was run by the Catholic Church and was operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Pembroke.
"I was only going to come for a year," she said. "Then I was going to go to university (to get a bachelor's degree in nursing). My goal was to become a nursing instructor."
But her plans got derailed when she got involved with a young man, who would eventually become her husband.
The nuns assigned Klufas to the surgical/maternity ward.
At that time, the hospital had two floors, and the surgical/maternity ward was on the upper floor, but the OR was on the ground floor.
"Which, if you think about it, doesn't make a lot of sense," she said.
Klufas noted after the nuns learned that she had experience in the OR, she found herself assisting in a lot of surgeries.
The first such instance occurred when she was called at home one evening in her first year, asking if she could scrub into an emergency surgery.
"I didn't even know where the OR was," she Klufas said.
When she first started at the hospital, Klufas earned $550 a month, which roughly works out to about $3.50 an hour. And while that might not sound like a lot, it was a good wage in 1972, Klufas said, noting it was augmented even further considering that, as apartments were impossible to come by, she ended up staying with an older couple that provided her room and board for $85 a month.
"So I had a lot of money left over, which was quite a change from being a broke student," she said.
She stayed at the hospital for eight years before moving over to the old 50-bed senior's nursing home facility (now home to a child daycare on 45th Street) to take on the role of nursing director.
"I don't know how I had the nerve to apply for the position as I had no management experience," she said, noting she stayed there for close to five years.
One of the highlights of her time there was that she served on the construction committee of the W.R. Keir Care Centre (now Barrhead Continuing Care Centre).
While Klufas enjoyed her time there, just before the new senior facility opened, she decided to move back to the hospital.
"If I had stayed, it would have meant that 100 per cent of my time would have been as the nursing director, and I wouldn't have no time working on the floor as a nurse, and I did not want that," she said.
In 2008, Klufas decided to cut back her duties, retiring partially. As part of the move, she also went back to the Barrhead Continuing Care Centre.
"I always said I wanted to end my career there because of how involved I was in its creation," she said.
And although Klufas said that overall, she enjoyed her career, that did not mean she did not go through her share of difficulties. She noted the Ralph Klein years were not a particularly fun time to be a nurse.
"They told us if we took a pay cut, there would not be any layoffs," she said. "We took the pay cut, but they went ahead with the layoffs. We lost a lot of good, needed people. We still haven't really recovered."
Klufas said the pandemic was also an especially difficult time for nursing staff and the residents at the Barrhead Continuing Care Centre.
"The restrictions, while needed, were hard on everyone," she said.
Klufas said the profession has gone through a lot of changes since she first walked onto the ward floor for the first time.
She noted that technology, in many ways, has improved patient care, noting the difference the introduction of patient lifts has made.
Klufas also said the introduction of pagers and, now cellphones, drastically changed the industry.
"When I was on call when I first started, all you had was your home telephone, so if you went anywhere, like if you were going to visit a friend for a couple of hours, you first had to go to the hospital and put the number of where you would be on the board. And when you left, your first stop was at the hospital, to change the number of where you would be."
As for what Klufas' plans are now that she does not have to punch a time clock, she said she wants to travel more and do more volunteering.
"Just being able to relax more and not worry as much. If I make a mistake while I am volunteering at the food bank and put the wrong item in a hamper, it is not the same as making a mistake as a nurse. But more importantly, we want to enjoy the flexibility that you have when you don't have to be somewhere."
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