Last year, while visiting his mother in Rainbow Hospital, Mark Sluggett caught the eye of a member of the institution's nursing department with his bedside manner.
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On Monday, he became one of eight new graduates of Certificate III in Individual Support for Aged Care.
The Warner Institute ran the three-day-a-week out of Horsham's Centre for Participation, the first time the Melbourne-based training provider offered a course in the Wimmera.
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The 55-year-old grew up in Rainbow and started out working on a farm, but quickly had to search for work to supplement his income after a serious drought in 1982. Two years later, aged 20, he took up truck driving.
"We had a couple of lean years so I had to sell the truck and started doing work interstate," he said. "I've spent time on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia driving road trains, and I did a six-month stint in Darwin driving B-doubles to Queensland."
Mr Sluggett said he thought was going to be a truck driver for the rest of his life before he returned home last year to support his mother June, who had began treatment for breast cancer.
"The lady who was in charge of the hospital asked me if I ever thought of doing something like nursing," he said.
"Truck driving had started getting hard on my body and I'd been away from home a while so I went for it."
Mr Sluggett undertook a placement at Rainbow hospital as part of the course. He now hopes his life experience and knowledge of what there is to do in town will come in handy.
"The first few days at the hospital I found difficult, just trying to get my head around it after last job," he said. "Then it just fell into place because I knew a lot of the residents.
"You come to realise just how hard it is for them, and that they don't get a lot of visitors, so activities are a big part of their day. There are also not a lot of men in this industry, even though there are male residents, so maybe I can help with stories from my farming and trucking background."
Mr Sluggett is set to attend a job interview to work in aged care in Nhill on Friday.
Six of the seven other graduates of the Warner Institute course, as young as 18, have been offered jobs at Horsham's Sunnyside and Kurrajong Lodge retirement villages.
Institute partnership manager Katherine Graham said the organisation's next Horsham intake of students for Certificate III in Individual Support would begin on July 15.
"We have also just started offering Certificate IV in the same discipline in Horsham," she said.
"We expect there will be another 950 jobs in aged care across Western Victoria (including Warrnambool and Mildura) by 2025."
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Alexander Darling
Alexander has been a member of the Wimmera Mail-Times' editorial team since December 2018, covering politics, business and property among other rounds. He is a passionate St.Kilda and rock and roll fan, and has previously worked as a radio reporter in Port Macquarie and Gosford, NSW.
Alexander has been a member of the Wimmera Mail-Times' editorial team since December 2018, covering politics, business and property among other rounds. He is a passionate St.Kilda and rock and roll fan, and has previously worked as a radio reporter in Port Macquarie and Gosford, NSW.
