Allied Health Professionals are prevalent in all sectors of healthcare. They are tertiary qualified practitioners that specialise in preventing, diagnosing, and treating a range of conditions and illnesses. Allied health practitioners often work within a multidisciplinary health team that provide specialised support for different patient needs. 

Now we have discovered what is at the heart of Allied Health, let’s hear from those that are on the ground making this work happen; The Allied Health Professionals themselves:

“Working in aged care has been delightful! I enjoy getting to know my clients and listening to their life experiences, especially if it gives them joy when recounting their memories.” Lilian Nguyen – Dietician

“I love when residents are looking and asking each other and team members for the ‘exercise man’, it can be hard to remember my name for most of my residents. I love talking to residents living with dementia and commenting and laughing over various things” Subhan Ali – Physiotherapist

“I love getting to know a variety of residents, getting to converse with them, and being the person they look forward to seeing daily. I love setting small goals to achieve with them during sessions and watching them light up when they reach their goals. I also love coming to a job where residents take great joy in your life achievements and forming lifelong bonds with people who have lived through some amazing times” Rebecca Webb – Occupational Therapist

“I love being able to give my resident my undivided attention and be someone they can confide in and look forward to seeing. Assisting them achieve little goals can make all the difference to their day” Erin Mercer – Occupational Therapist

“I love really getting to know the residents, asking “what’s your story”, building rapport, having laughs and trying to brighten up what might be ‘just another day’” Fiona Smith – Occupational Therapist

“I love working with the older generation and learning about some of the many experiences they have had – the good and the bad. I think it takes a strong therapeutic relationship to allow for individuals to open up. I find that I open up in the process too. I love that we get to work with the same people each week as it really does enable you to build meaningful relationships and work on goals to make each day more manageable” Kirsten Ineson – Occupational Therapist

“Conveying a cranky and challenging resident to get their pain program and exercises done is indescribable! And telling you to come again is just pretty amazing!” Kent Resquir – Physiotherapist

“I like working in aged care as I get the new Challenge everyday as resident’s mood changes everyday. Main Challenge is improvement and patience. Treating young patients is easy( if you compare with private practice setting) as you can see improvement very quickly whereas in aged care you have to have lots of patience to see the improvement and when you get that improvement, the immense joy and hope in residents eyes makes all your efforts and patience worthy. Sometimes you have to think of out of the box to make them exercise as they have so many restricted movements or cognitive impairment or resistive behaviour and when you successfully made them do and see the improvement, you feel very proud of yourself. When resident starts walking after many years because of your treatment and than he tells each and every person he meets that ” curly hair girl made me walking” lol. You can not express your happiness and worth of working in aged care. You surely gets attach to your residents and feel like family” Hetal Bathani – Physiotherapist

HCA Allied Health is a leading nationwide provider of allied health services in residential aged care, community care, and NDIS. We help seniors reduce pain, regain mobility, and get back to doing the things that matter to them.