A Piece Of Home At The Hospital: A Mother & Son Working Side By Side

Over the past year, our healthcare heroes have been at front of mind for obvious reasons. As a result, so have hospitals and healthcare in general. But, one thing we often forget is that hospitals like the Canmore General Hospital are large employers that help drive their communities in more ways than one.

Inside the Canmore Hospital, you’d be surprised to find that there are endless family ties among the staff. From spouses working in different departments to a mother and son working side by side, there’s a little bit of home at the hospital for a number of people who work there.

For one Canmore family, the Batemans, three of the four of them work at the Canmore General Hospital. Dave, Susie, Dexter, and Morgan are a father, mother, 25-year-old son, and 23-year-old son. Dave and Susie are both nurses, Susie working in home-care and Dave on long-term care, and Dexter is a Practical Nurse (LPN) who works alongside his mom in home-care.

Susie and Dexter love their roles at the hospital, even more so since they have the pleasure of working together. In fact, they both refer to the other as their “favourite co-worker.” While Dexter says that he “looks forward to every day [he] gets to work with her,” Susie says she’s sure to pack an extra lunch every time she sees his name on the schedule.

Their family has been in Canmore for over 20 years, having spent a couple of years in Revelstoke when the boys were young and a summer up north when Susie and Dave were working as outpost nurses.

Susie’s nursing career began in her hometown of Montreal at the Royal Victoria Hospital where she worked on a hematology, oncology, bone marrow transplant floor. Next, she and Dave began what would become many stints working up north on First Nations communities in small, fly-in communities of about 400 people. They then took off to Glasgow in 1995 where Dexter was born and headed back to Canada for more work up north. Morgan was born at the Canmore Hospital in 1997. Susie worked at the hospital in Revelstoke while they lived there before settling at the Canmore Hospital in 2002. Between those years Dave held positions as a nursing instructor at Mount Royal in Calgary and as the Manager of the Canmore Hospital.

Dexter & Susie

When Susie applied at the Canmore Hospital, she said she wanted to work nights. “I preferred nights, I’d been doing it all the time at the Royal Vic so I was used to it,” she explained. “They said, ok you’re hired!” She laughed. Her first position in Canmore was on acute care.

After a few years, she knew her parents would be coming west from Montreal and the boys were getting older, so she made the decision to switch from nights to days and got a position on long-term care. During her time on long-term care, she and Dave did go back up north for more outpost nursing. “We did North West Territories for a summer with the boys when Morgan was in grade 1 and Dexter was in grade 3,” she told us.

While working in the First Nations communities, the two young boys got a first-hand look at what their parents did each day. “Dexter, when we were up north, would sometimes come into the clinics as a youngster up in Fort Simpson. He had a good visual of what we were doing,” Susie reflected. Eventually, Susie made the move to home-care where she works now.

The Canmore Hospital has always been an essential part of the Bateman family. With Morgan having been born there, Dave and Susie both working there, and even Susie’s father eventually becoming a resident on long-term care.

Beyond the hospital, healthcare has been a common theme in their family for generations. Dave’s father was a doctor and his mother was a nurse, so neither Dave nor Dexter were ever strangers to the industry.

You can imagine that it wasn’t a surprise when Dexter began to show interest in becoming a nurse. “I’ve always wanted to help people,” said Dexter, “and my parents definitely inspired me. Papa was a doctor, nana was a nurse, mom’s a nurse, dad’s a nurse, so I think it probably came from that, but I do like helping people.”

Dexter enrolled for an LPN program at Bow Valley College for the fall of 2017. He began working in home-care as a health care aid the summer before. He continued this work during school and throughout the summers until he graduated.

“I graduated in January of 2019, got my actual license in February, within a month I got hired on long-term care and I worked with my dad. So I worked there for about three months, I was also still doing HCA work with the home-care. Then I applied to be a causal LPN with home-care and I was the successful candidate. Soon after I went from casual to full-time,” Dexter explained.

Susie said that she and Dave thought it was a great idea when Dexter said he’d like to go to school for nursing.

“He and Morgan were actively involved in taking care of my dad. If it wasn’t trying to fix the remote, they’d have to help him on and off the toilet sometimes because he was having trouble before he ended up on long-term care. So I think that may have influenced him a bit, I think he liked caring for his grandfather,” she said. Dexter even volunteered on long-term care while he was in high school.

Dexter’s Papa, Baby Dexter, Susie, and Dexter’s Nana.

While Susie said she held back in telling patients that Dexter was her son in the beginning for fear of seeming unprofessional, she soon found that patients were recognizing her name because Dexter had proudly told them she was his mom.

Now more than ever, the two are grateful for the time they get to spend together at work. “During the pandemic, I didn’t’ get to see my mom as much. So it’s been so nice being able to see her almost every day at work,” said Dexter.

If you’ve worked or spent time at the Canmore Hospital, you’ve likely encountered at least one of the Batemans. If you’ve had the pleasure of meeting them you’d agree that they are caregivers by nature. They are warm, compassionate, and would do anything in their power to help someone in need.

Susie and Dexter described their roles on home-care. “The goal is to keep people at home as long as we can so that they can maintain their independence and their goal to stay at home,” said Susie. “The main idea is to promote independence and alleviate acute care and emergency,” Dexter continued.

Home-care nurses and LPNs do everything from wound care to IVs, phlebotomies to catheters, anything a patient needs and can be done without sending them to the emergency room. They help those who are immobile or have a difficult time getting around by coming to them. In addition, they take referrals from doctors and the emergency room and bring patients into the clinic to treat them.

“You’re not just dealing with elders. Sometimes you have to deal with palliative patients as well,” said Susie. “Sometimes toddlers, 18-year-olds, 16-year-olds,” Dexter added.

“The nurse’s role and LPNs role is usually deciding what kind of care that person might need and delegating that care to the Heath Care Aid,” said Susie.

As is the case with many healthcare positions, home-care staff need to be adaptable, knowledgeable in a wide range of areas, and of course, immensely patient and caring.

Canmore Home Care supports AHS’ mission “to provide a patient-focused, quality health system that is accessible and sustainable for all residents of the Bow valley.”

Home-care works with clients, families, external Contracted Service Providers, and community-based resources/supports throughout the Calgary Zone.

Home-care’s focus is creating an environment where clients can live at home or in community settings for as long as possible. Patients can access the services by self-referral by calling Community Care Access at 403-943-1920.

Both mother and son speak volumes of the people they work with at the hospital. “Really, it’s the team. There’s a really nice, relaxed vibe, there’s not a nurse there that I don’t love working with,” said Susie.

Dexter describes his colleagues as “more like friends than coworkers.” He loves his role because he’s often able to “discharge pertinence because they’ve healed, so being able to see people get back to being independent both on their own and without help is really rewarding.”

Susie, Dexter, and Dave in Cambodia.

In speaking about The Canmore Hospital Foundation, Susie noted that “They’ve done amazing things over the years, just absolutely incredible things. They were instrumental in getting some new equipment for Dr. Pagenkopf in his endoscopy suite. I know that they worked on expanding the long-term care unit and upgrading it so that it would feel more like a home for the residents. That was huge.”

Dexter spoke to the Cancer Clinic, one of the Foundation’s funds, “The clinic is where I work most days. It’s a great clinic and everybody that comes in there loves it because of the nice view, all the rabbits and birds.”

The Foundation is overjoyed to support people like Susie and Dexter in elevating the experience their patients receive on a daily basis.