Marizon became a registered nurse in the Philippines in 1972. She was a clinical instructor at Ortañez University. Then later on, she decided to take on the opportunity to work overseas and went to America.
When she realised it was taking so long for the US Embassy to release her family’s visa, she decided to go back to the Philippines. “At that time, Australia was needing nurses and it only took the Australian embassy six months to release our visas,” Marizon says.
“We started a hard life. To be honest with you I don’t know how I did my life to come to this stage of my life in Australia.”
Watch below for the video interview with Marizon Villanueva:
Since her nursing degree in the Philippines is not recognised here in Australia, she had to work in Blacktown Hospital as a third year student nurse to be registered as a nurse.
“It was supposed to be a 6-month third year training but because of my previous experiences in America, the matron cut it down to 3 months” she explains.
Mrs Villanueva had worked for Blacktown Hospital for three years. She stayed there until her employer sponsored her to do the Intensive Care course at Westmead Hospital.
“I did my Intensive Care course at Westmead Hospital in 1982 and I never left Westmead after that (laughs).”
After she finished the general ICU course, she moved on to do Cardiothoracic ICU. ”I’m still in cardio thoracic ICU up to now. We do open heart surgery, lung surgeries—it’s basically open heart” she describes.
She looks after teenagers with congenital cardiac defects. “After having numerous operations from the time that they are babies, they come to us when they become teenagers. So we look after them and further do more constructive surgeries of the heart. Looking at them go home healthy is such a wonderful feeling.”
On her retirement
Marizon admitted that she attempted to retire. “It was a short retirement and I got bored so I went back to work” she says.
“My husband and my son were going crazy because you know, all I did was yell at them at home. They said why don’t you go back to work? We’ll drive you to work. We’ll pick you up from work and that’s what they did up until my husband died.”
She will be celebrating her 70th birthday in August. While many people have asked her about her retirement, she confesses she still wants to continue to work.
“I am still active, going to work gives me meaning and purpose to get up in the morning especially after my husband died and I intend to be active until I can’t walk anymore.”
