Nurses - made in Mount Gambier
by Michèle Nardelli
Tomorrow
starts today could be Felicia Adeniyi’s daily mantra and it’s
certainly an expression her children have heard more than once.
As one of the first nursing students studying at the Mt Gambier campus and now one of its first graduates, she has lived her "studying" years with enormous passion and discipline.
"I was up at 5 am each day to pray, get the family ready and get off to uni by 8.30 am," she said.
"I went to classes and studied until about 5 pm when I picked up the children went home and organised meals, school lunches and then went to bed by about 8.30 pm completely exhausted."
Originally from Namibia, Adeniyi moved with her GP husband Gabriel to regional Australia in 2003, a move she describes as a bit of an adventure.
"We wanted to see something new, something different and Australia offered work opportunities and a real change of scene," Adeniyi said.
For a while they settled into life in Mt Gambier with Gabriel focused on his role at the Mt Gambier District Hospital and Felicia dedicated to two growing boys and work at the local branch of BankSA.
"I had always felt fulfilled by the idea of a caring role - I think I have a natural flair for that kind of work so I’d always hoped one day to find a way to express that," she says.
"When UniSA opened up in Mt Gambier I felt as though they had
done that just for me. There was no way I could have done my nursing
degree without the campus being there. I started my studies just
three weeks after my daughter Grace was born and she became a bit of
a class mascot. On one or two occasions,
I breastfed her quietly in class no one noticed and I didn’t have to
miss the lecture."
Adeniyi said she felt an enormous responsibility to perform well because she felt lucky to have the opportunity to study locally.
"I don’t know, it might sound funny, but I wanted to repay the privilege by performing really well in my studies - so that the uni would be proud of me."
With enormous support from her local friends and adopted "grandparents" the Bastiaens - who provided a lot of childcare - Adeniyi graduated not only with an academic excellence award under her belt in first year, but with distinctions in every one of her clinical sciences assessments for the entire degree.
She left Mt Gambier after graduation to return to the family’s new home in Merridin, WA, where she has already begun her 12- month graduate year at the Merridin Hospital.
"I have been blessed with great support from my husband, my children and my friends, but also from the whole UniSA community in Mt Gambier."
At the end of April, 39 people graduated from degree programs in business, social work and nursing in Mt Gambier. These are the first students to have completed their degrees at UniSA’s Mount Gambier campus.