After 43 years as a nurse in Westlock, with the latter part of that time spent at the hospital’s top post, Joyce Nadeau has retired.
But if you ask about her many accomplishments during her career, she will be the first person to tell you about a community pulling together to make things happen.
“There’s nothing that I accomplished on my own,” she said. “I was always part of a team, always part of a group.”
As a group and a community, however, she said the biggest accomplishment has been maintaining such a high-quality hospital with such a high level of care for the people in the community.
Her many accomplishments were recognized last Friday night at her retirement party, where many praised her efforts and patient-first attitude throughout her career.
Many people spoke highly of her, including Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock MLA Ken Kowalski, deputy mayor Darrel Erickson, and perhaps most importantly, many of the people who worked with and for her throughout her long career.
Her co-workers spoke of a woman who had compassion, enthusiasm, integrity and the ability to get things done. They spoke of a woman who was always ready to help her staff and to find solutions to whatever problems would arise.
In the face of such high praise, however, Nadeau remains humble.
“I have been absolutely blessed to have a profession that was so fulfilling and gave me such opportunities,” she said.
She chose her profession for a very simple reason: she wanted to help people. When she began her career at the Immaculata Hospital in 1967, she was just happy to be able to work for the Sisters of Charity, who ran the hospital at the time.
“In those days, you didn’t go in it for the money, because in those days we were paid less than everybody else,” she laughed.
As things progressed, however, she moved up through various roles in the hospital before eventually becoming the facility manager.
Among Nadeau’s many accomplishments — of course with the assistance of the many helping hands around her — are implementing several new services and programs in Westlock. These include orthopedics, dialysis, ophthalmology, gynecology, and a host of others.
Prior to many of these services being brought to Westlock, patients from this area had to travel into Edmonton to get many of those services.
Despite this formidable list of accomplishments, she nonetheless displays one of the main qualities of a good leader — wishing she could have done more.
“It’s an ongoing process. There’s still room for huge growth and new programs. There are new challenges coming in the future,” she said.
When changes to the health system started taking form in the 1990s, Nadeau was one of the six nurses — out of about 24,000 in the province — who were asked to sit at the round table to discuss the changes.
“I sat on many provincial committees, and sat on the executive of the nurses’ professional association,” she said. “I’ve taken quite a wide view of things, but truly I was committed to this hospital and this community.”
One of the most lasting examples of that commitment is the hospital in Westlock, which was built in 1995 — during the same time frame that health regions were being reorganized the health budgets were being cut across the province.
Nadeau’s efforts to have the old hospital replaced were no small part of what ensured the Westlock Community Healthcare Centre was built, but she remembers it as a solid community effort.
Even the process of moving the equipment from the old building to the new building was a community effort. Nadeau recalls people in the community coming together with their own personal vehicles and volunteering their time.
“We hauled stuff on farm trucks,” she said. “My own husband came and moved beds into the hospital. The board members came to move the beds in.”
Nadeau continues to credit that strong community effort and the sense of camaraderie in Westlock with enabling this community to have such a strong hospital and such top-quality services..
“You have to do it together. If there’s any one person who tells you they can do this on their own, they’re blowing smoking up your skirt,” she said. “The community should be proud of this hospital.”
