When Deanna Keogh began her nursing career at the Bendigo Home and Hospital for the Aged in 1979, student nurses still wore hats and end of life care was very different.
Across the following 47 years she would work in the old towers, watching the Stella Anderson Wing built and later demolished, witness the evolution of the organisation into Bendigo Health and help shape hospice and palliative care in the region.
Deanna began her career caring for older patients in what is now the West Wing before moving into the Stella Anderson Wing (SAW), now part of the Gibson Street Complex.
It was work she loved. “I was happy looking after older people. I never planned to work in palliative care. It happened completely by accident.” she said.
Nursing also gave Deanna the chance to continue working while raising her family at a time when many women often had to choose between work and home life.
Opportunities that arose at the SAW allowed Deanna to return part time and continue building her career. “It somehow just weaved together,” she said.
That pathway would eventually lead her into hospice care.
In the early 1990s, a 10-bed hospice service opened, introducing a new approach to end of life care at a time when palliative care was still emerging.
“We all got there and thought, what the heck are we doing?” Deanna said.
“None of us really knew anything.”
Determined to learn more, Deanna and her colleagues travelled to study days, attended education at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and sought out training in grief, bereavement and end of life care.
Over the following decades she watched hospice evolve into the specialised palliative care service it is today. “I feel like I’ve watched a child grow up,” she said.
The biggest change she has seen has not just been clinical. It has been how people understand death. “When I started, people weren’t always told they were dying and families often didn’t understand what was happening,” she said.
Deanna’s approach was also shaped by her own experience of loss.
She remembers receiving a phone call to say her mother was “having a bad day”. When she arrived, her mother was dying. She died later that night. The experience stayed with her and continued to influence the way she cared for patients and families.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about it,” she said.
“What does ‘having a bad day’ mean? Families don’t know. They have no idea.”
It reinforced for Deanna the importance of honest conversations, clear language and helping families understand when someone is approaching the end of life, they have the opportunity to be present, ask questions and say goodbye.
“That’s the number one regret I hear. ‘Why wasn’t I there?’” she said.
“Nine times out of ten they weren’t there because they didn’t know.”
Over the years Deanna has cared for thousands of patients and supported families through some of life’s hardest moments.
She has seen weddings held in the unit, baptisms celebrated at the bedside and families gather for final conversations. She has sat with patients when loved ones could not arrive in time and helped create a space that felt less clinical and more like home.
For Deanna, palliative care has always been about dignity, honesty and helping families understand what comes next.
“It’s been such a privilege. I’ve seen thousands of people die, and every one of them mattered.”
Retiring during Palliative Care Week, Deanna leaves behind not only a remarkable career, but a legacy built on compassion, advocacy and care for patients and families at the end of life.