By Derek Schlennstedt
The Queen’s Birthday Honours Awards have included one of the Yarra Valley’s very own.
Each year for the Queen’s Birthday, Australia’s best and brightest are awarded for service to the country.
Amongst those receiving awards was Sandra Hills, from Yering, who was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for her ‘services to aged care’.
Sandra has spent a lifetime in aged care, and has been a strong advocate for addressing and improving support services for the disadvantaged and elderly.
Sandra said that she was surprised when she heard that she had received an OAM, and although she was ‘honoured’ to have been awarded one, she noted that there were many other people who should be recognised and said she was part of a wider ‘team’.
“I’m just so overwhelmed, I didn’t really expect it and of course there are plenty of people who need to be recognised, and like many of these awards you accept it on behalf of those people,” she said.
“You work as part of a team.
“You don’t get to achieve what you achieved by yourself, I’ve worked hard and have a passion but there’s been a lot lot of people who have helped along the way and supported me along the way.”
Sandra has spent 20 years working in aged care, and in that time has worked at Brotherhood of St Laurence, Anglicare, and is currently CEO of Benetas, one of Victoria’s leading not-for-profit aged care service providers.
Her work involves finding ways in which to improve support services and includes transforming developing, and implementing changes to the purposes of policy development around aged care.
“Looking at services for older people, I know very few people who want to get old, and the whole image of aging is so negative.”
“We should embrace aging, we’re living older as a community and we should embrace that, we are healthier and living longer.”
With roles and qualifications spanning nursing, psychology, sociology, research and business management, Sandra has plenty of experience in delivering policies to improve aged care services.
Sandra said that although there been improvement in the aged care services and human services sector, there is still work to be done.
“People feel a certain age and they feel society doesn’t want them, which is rubbish because our society depends on older people.
“A huge number of people over 65 who volunteer their time – the whole shire would come to a standstill if older people didn’t donate their time.“
“So we need to ensure they get the support they need,” she said.
It’s not all work and no play though, and Sandra said that despite being very passionate about her job she does enjoy pottering in her garden in Yering where she and her husband John run an accommodation which is self sufficient in produce.
“I think it’s something we feel strongly about, we’ve got the beautiful soil and have the capacity to grow, and what we don’t use, we give away, we don’t throw anything out.”
“I get a lot of joy out of gardening – it’s all about work/life balance,” she said.
