Question: What do you do when crows are destroying cars parked on the street outside the hospital?
Answer: Engage the staff at the Boggabri John Prior Multi Purpose Service.
Over the past week crows have been destroying cars parked on the street, not the cars parked in the parking lot on site but outside the facility on the normal street parking.
Crows have destroyed windscreen wipers by ripping out the rubber, tearing rubber away from window surrounds and sunroof and in one case got inside a car that the window was slightly down and demolished the seat.
Phone calls for help and guidance to various departments and sources were unsuccessful.
Nurses demonstrate care through creative thinking by generating innovative solutions to patient care challenges, improving quality of care, developing new practices, and making beneficial decisions in complex situations.
This ability allows nurses to provide unique, effective, and cost-efficient patient care by combining critical thinking with fresh perspectives, leading to better health outcomes for patients and improved organisational performance.
Combine these qualities with those of the support staff from hotel services, and maintenance and you get a solution to protecting the cars and scaring the crows away.
On Friday, August 29, two paramedics who had never been to Boggabri did a double take as they came around the corner to see what they initially thought were people tied to the back fence.
Unsure of what they were letting themselves in for they had a closer look and realised that they were very realistic ‘scarecrows.’
When their vital signs had come back to normal, the paramedics were asked to use their professionalism and skills to judge the scarecrows.
First place went to the hotel service members with their creation of ‘Bruce’ and his stone the crow’s theme.
Judging notes included that the bucket of stones, fake cigarette in his hand along with a cup of coffee and his wheelie walker pipped out the diversional therapy entry.
Diversional therapy had put a lot of effort into their family and created three scarecrows, ‘Marvin the miner, his wife, Molly and baby Mandy’.
Boggabri MPS residents in the nursing home and hostel wings enjoyed a visit out the back to view the creations.
Funny stories from the staff included watching ‘Priscilla Queen of the Desert’ being driven up the street, proudly strapped onto the back of a ute, her hair blowing in the wind.
While there has been a lot of sympathy for poor thin, overworked ‘Nurse Nancy’, it hasn’t alleviated the shortage of nurses in the system.
A very realistic ‘Shane’s Mate’ leaned on the fence and fooled a few into thinking it was a real maintenance man.
‘Bruce’ was lying on the ground, in the grass for a period of time and the nurses were worried that if a community member drove past they might think someone had fallen and couldn’t get up so he was strapped to the fence quick smart.
Another nurse said: “it’s a bit of a worry that no-one actually rang the hospital or checked that he was down and out”.
While it has created a lot of conversations and a laugh the damage done to some cars has been very serious. Let’s hope this works.
STOP PRESS
The Courier has been informed that last Saturday some of the scarecrows were maliciously destroyed by two kids.
One of the legs of Priscilla was pulled off, lucky it was found and has been put back on, however, Shane’s mate wasn’t so lucky.
He had his head ripped off and the head itself destroyed.
They also tried to pull off Bruce’s walker but thankfully it was tied tight.
Marvin’s family was struggling in the wind and ended up on the ground, however, one of the hay bales that they were sitting on disappeared.
Many Boggabri residents and especially the staff are devastated.
One staff member said: “Very disappointed in human beings right now – we are just trying to deal with a challenging problem in a creative and low impact kind of way.
“The scarecrows were withstanding the terrible wind conditions but cannot withstand disrespectful, uncaring people.”
Another said: “I am so sad and disappointed this kind of behaviour has happened in our community.
“Small towns like ours pride ourselves on our community spirit and our abilities to overcome challenges.
“This is not who we are and is very disheartening.”
“I hope the culprits feel remorse knowing how sad and deflated our elderly residents who helped with this project are going to feel about their actions.”
One passionate community member said: “What the hell is going on with kids these days? Maybe a bit of parental guidance should be happening and then make them pay for a remake of these precious things, just to show them what it’s like to lose something they have spent time, money and effort on.”
One man only had two words: “Absolutely disgusting”.
There is a positive, the kids are on camera, so it probably is in their and their parent’s interest to go to the hospital and apologise.
