Founder: Laurel Ling in the garden at Anam Cara House. Picture: Tommy Ritchie 55703
Andrew Mathieson
SITTING in the sunniest room of Geelong’s Anam Cara House, Laurel Ling thinks about years of sweat and tears then starts to well up herself.
“Oh, I still get emotional about it,” Laurel says, “because the house really was a challenge.”
She gasps for a moment, struggling to hold back tears.
“This is very special to me.”
The light flooding from the nearby window into the living area almost masquerades the tears of happiness inside her heart.
Palliative nurse Laurel and co-founder Diane Wright almost literally built from the ground up the respite care facility for patients in the final stages of their lives battling incurable illnesses.
Laurel remembers the day – Easter Friday, 2000 – when Diane, a leader of the former Geelong Hospice Care, uttered to her over the phone: “Come on, let’s do something about it”.
Palliative care in the region was previously akin to ad hoc nursing. The nurses would travel from home to home to comfort dying patients.
“The dream has taken 10 years,” Laurel contemplates.
“Technically, from my and Diane’s conversations you’d say it has taken at least eight years but the thought of hospice care like this one has been alive since the 1980s.”
The Anam Cara House dream first took shape when Geelong priest Father Kevin Dillon convinced local parishioners and Melbourne archdioceses to put up the former St Mary’s building for respite care.
“Father Kevin started thinking there are just two priests in this big, old house and it’s in the perfect position between St John of God and Geelong Hospital,” Laurel explains.
“But this house was a house of disrepair.”
So a steering committee raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring the distinguished old lady up to scratch.
Laurel’s personal mission was to open upstairs accommodation for families wanting to sit by the bedside of sick loved ones day and night.
The pride she takes in showing off the tasteful rooms is only equalled by her commitment to the job.
“I have a passion for respecting people – it’s nothing special or clever,” Laurel says as she starts to tear up again.
“You’re just as important as someone like Barack Obama.”
Laurel started palliative nursing in 1982, right from the beginning of Geelong Hospice Care, when she was still naive to the task ahead.
“I actually didn’t know what the word hospice was – I had to look it up,” she grinningly admits.
“Back then it was called hospice care, too. Palliative wasn’t really used.”
Laurel was one of four Geelong carers who worked a combination of late evenings, overnight stays and hard weekends to ease the pain of patients.
Time sheets had the nurses working standard hours but Laurel tells the reality was closer to 60 hours a week.
It was a tough initiation.
“It was absolutely amazing what you did because you got called out at two o’clock in the morning and then the beeper would go off again,” she recalls.
“We didn’t have mobile phones, so in all hours of the morning you’d be going to find a phone booth to ring up to find out who’s next.”
Laurel toiled for years during great change when Barwon Health officially took over palliative care in 2000.
It went from a “Rolls Royce” service for the very few who could afford it to, as Laurel jokes, a “Holden” covering a wide area and more patients.
“Back then there were no homes like this or an acute hospital – that was it,” Laurel says.
Laurel’s reputation for years of hard work to finally bring a respite care facility to Geelong were eventually overshadowned by son Cameron’s growing fame on the footy field.
But being identified as the mum of Geelong Football Club’s captain has given her a laugh or two.
“It’s rather gorgeous,” Laurel smiles.
“I’d be talking to someone who only knows me as Laurel. Then they’d look at my nametag and ask whether I’m any relation to Cameron.
“I’d say yes then they’d ask what relation am I.
“When I’d say I’m his mother they’d go ‘Oh’ and sometimes even ask whether they can touch me.”
