Judith Durham singing at the 2007 Annual Delegates Conference
Our thoughts are with all those who loved Judith Durham AO. Her career with The Seekers and as a solo artist has left Australia richer.
Nurses and midwives loved her songs, but we loved her more for the support she gave those nurses the rest of society considered ‘broken’.
She never forgot the nurses who were first on the scene of her car accident in 1990. She became the Patron of the Injured Nurses Support Group supporting its then President Elizabeth Langford to reveal the long-term suffering of nurses, injured at work, who’d been unfairly treated by employers and insurers.
Inspired by Elizabeth, Judith became passionate about advocating for policies to prevent nurses being hurt when they moved patients. Elizabeth’s important ‘Buried but not dead’ report became the basis of the ANMF (Vic Branch) No Lifting Policy in 1998.
Today, manual handling techniques and equipment have prevented thousands of injuries and saved countless lives and livelihoods.
To acknowledge Elizabeth’s retirement in 2007, Judith performed at the ANMF (Vic Branch) Annual Delegates Conference that year. She delighted an audience of young and not so young nurses and midwives who sang along to ‘I’ll never find another you’ and ‘Georgy Girl’.
Thank you for your voice Judith – for the songs you sang and for speaking up for those nurses and midwives when no one was listening to them – we’ll never find another you.
ANMF (Vic Branch) Secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick, then Injured Nurses Support Group President Elizabeth Langford and Patron of the INSG Judith Durham.
Judith Durham singing at the 2007 Annual Delegates Conference
Judith Durham, then Patron of the Injured Nurses Support Group, singing at the 2007 Annual Delegates Conference.
