AN ALBURY girl born with a heart condition has landed her dream job.
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In early March Eloise Hill became a nurse at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, where she had two major surgeries, ongoing investigations and regular checkups as a child.
She had two out of her three pacemakers fitted there, aged just six and 11.
Growing up in South Albury, Eloise said she wanted to become a nurse at the Royal Children’s Hospital for as long as she could remember.
“It’s a dream come true for me,” she said.
“I wanted to help kids like the nurses helped me.
“I know how it is to be that kid terrified in a hospital bed hundreds of kilometres from home even though I had my family with me.”
Eloise’s mum Christine Hill said her daughter was born in Albury in 1995 with a congenital heart block.
She said Eloise’s heart was recording 65 beats a minute instead of the normal rate of between 120 and 180.
“She was taken to the Royal Children’s Hospital within five hours of her birth,” Mrs Hill said.
Mrs Hill said Eloise came back to Albury a week later but returned to Melbourne routinely to monitor the condition.
She said just before her sixth birthday – on an inauspicious date in history, September 11, 2001 – Eloise's heart condition needed surgery.
“Her heart rate had dropped to below 30 beats a minute at night,” she said.
“She had her first pacemaker at the Royal Children’s around her sixth birthday and the second at 11-and-a-half years.”
A former Xavier High School student, Eloise graduated from her Bachelor of Nursing at Charles Sturt University – Albury during 2016.
She did her nursing graduate year at Monash Medical Centre and Monash Children’s Hospital.
“I always wanted to be a nurse,” she said.
“I was going to start at the Royal Children’s Hospital as soon as I could.
“I chose to work with kids because I could relate to their experiences.
“When I saw the kids on television for the Good Friday Appeal, I started crying because I knew them.”
Eloise said she looked forward to working at the Royal Children’s Hospital on Good Friday in future but this year she had enjoyed Easter with her mum and dad, Greg.
