In the age of portfolio careers and workplace mobility, it is not unusual for people to switch jobs after four or five years.

But for Caregiver Ynys Cadogan, who is marking 45 years in the role this year, there are no plans to change things up.

Indeed, the Yvette Williams Village employee is focused on rounding up her caregiving career to a neat 50 years!

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“I really enjoy my work and I really enjoy my residents,” says Ynys, who, perhaps even more remarkably, has worked night shifts for 43 of those 45 years.

The night shift has a particularly special appeal, says Ynys.

“I love that I have the amount of time I get to talk with my residents. Because I’m on nights, there’s no distraction and they tell me things that they wouldn’t talk about during the day.

“I think it’s just a more intimate and caring time, the residents are more relaxed and also more vulnerable. I have always found that quite special.”

Ynys says she often finds out details about her residents’ lives that their families never knew.

“When I talk to the relatives, often after the resident has died, I will say how I heard about this or that and how they did such and such, and they will often say, ‘I never knew that!’

“One resident told me how her father ran off with Jean Batten. They were together for a wee while but they couldn’t ever marry because the resident’s mother was so opposed to it and wouldn’t give him a divorce. The resident had never told her children about it.”

Over the years, Ynys has noticed many improvements that have made the job easier.

“We have far better equipment now. The Slippery Sams to move people across to a bed, or the transferbelts. They are one of the best inventions because you can stand your residents up and they can feel safe.

“The food we serve now, using our Saffron food system, it shows you how the plates should look and even if the resident has soft food, it still looks presentable and appetising.”

Ynys says the methods of teaching new starters are much better now too.

“When I first started there was an RN (Registered Nurse) who would put you in the linen room and make you cry if you didn’t do things her way.

“Things like counterpanes on the beds had to be folded in a certain way and if you didn’t do it right she’d undo it and tell you to do it again, five minutes before your shift was supposed to end.

“So now when I’m orientating people I always say to them ‘We do it this way because….’ They’re much more likely to continue doing it that way if they know there’s a good reason for it, and not just because somebody said.”

Despite struggling with dyslexia at school, at 17, Ynys had originally planned to train as a nurse but missed out on that year’s intake due to it being oversubscribed.

Instead, she took a role as a caregiver at The Chalet, a private hospital owned by a group of surgeons and anaesthetists.

“The surgeons were amazing people. We were the only people doing gender reassignments in the southern hemisphere back then. It was very interesting.

“There were 13 beds upstairs and downstairs we had seven geriatric beds for women of a certain class.

“They were very well off ladies who had been brought up with the finer things – we did butter balls and cleaned the silver every day!” she says.

Ynys took some time off for maternity leave when she had her son and on returning to work switched to night shift.

Ynys, above with Yvette Williams Village Manager Gail Miller, receives a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a box of goodies to mark her incredible 45 years as a caregiver.

Ryman opened the new Yvette Williams Village in 2011 and Ynys was happy with her routine, working five nights from 11pm to 7am during the week and keeping her weekends free for adventures with husband Tony and their Jack Russell dog Speculoos, named after the Dutch word for caramel.

“We have a campervan which we tour around in, and we really love wine and food.

“We have been to most of the wine regions of New Zealand and we’re planning to go to Waiheke in December.”

Grandmother-of-two Ynys says their routine wouldn’t work for everybody, but it works for them.

“I normally get to bed at 2pm and I don’t get up until 9.45pm. It works for us.”

Now, at 63, she works four nights a week with her goal to make it a neat five decades in the job.

“I’m planning on doing 50 years’ service. I started work at 17 - lots of people start work at that age but maybe not all of them stay in the same job.”

Ynys says she often keeps quiet about her long tenure when new people start at the village, which is in Roslyn, Dunedin.

“No one stays in a job for long these days, but I think if you’re going to leave, you need to leave for a better job, not just another job that’s the same.

“I have stayed because I love my work, I love the night shift and I love my residents.

“It just ticks all the boxes for me.”

Yvette Williams Village Manager Gail Miller congratulated Ynys on her ‘incredible milestone of 45 years as a caregiver’.

“The knowledge and experience that Ynys brings, plus her wonderful rapport with our residents, make her a very valuable member of the Yvette Williams team.

“She is a great support for new night staff, especially the registered nurses. She could basically run the place!

“We all want to acknowledge and thank her for her decades of loyalty and service.”