Exactly twenty years to the day after Deb Young started her midwifery journey she retired. Leaving her role as Midwifery Unit Manager, Midwifery Group Practice (MGP), the milestone date was unplanned – much like most of Deb’s nursing and midwifery career. Instead, it was all just “meant to be”.
In 1980 Deb stepped into Tamworth Base Hospital as a trainee nurse, a single mum who had never pictured herself in uniform. There were no formalities; a connection between the matron and her mother opened the door.
“There was no EEO or selection criteria to write,” Deb laughed.
The world she entered was strict and deeply hierarchical.
“When I became a registered nurse, we were called sisters. We wore white dresses, white shoes, a white cap, white stockings and a red cape. We did not pass a senior staff member on the stairs.”
The early training was immersive and immediate. Preliminary Training School lasted six weeks, then reality arrived with shifts on the wards. Over three years Deb became Sister Young, took to practice quickly and began shaping change.
On the medical ward she qualified as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in cardiac care and cofounded Tamworth’s first cardiac rehabilitation program in 1986. She also pushed for practical, modern workwear.
“I led the charge to get rid of the old white uniforms. They were impractical and reinforced a hierarchy we no longer needed. We negotiated corporate uniforms well before NSW Health adopted them,” Deb said.
Deb’s curiosity kept widening her impact. She took a secondment as a discharge planner to stop the revolving door of readmissions, then relieved in senior roles including Director of Nursing.
Regionally, as Area Coordinator of Nursing Services in New England during amalgamation with Hunter Area Health, Deb lead projects such as rolling out nurse practitioner positions.
“I wrote the first nurse practitioner guidelines for the state in community nurse generalist roles,” Deb said.
As the rural representative on the state board of the College of Nursing, Deb helped move vocational courses through higher education accreditation. Government House receptions with Governor Marie Bashir and Sir Nicholas Shehadie signalled the esteem in which the college was held.
Deb’s turn toward midwifery began with a personal reckoning. Working on recruitment with the Area Director of Nursing, Deb studied emerging midwifery models of care, ran focus groups with women and midwives, and saw how continuity could solve workforce and care challenges and provide improved outcomes to women.
Then one night, buried in fleet fuel spreadsheets as Health Service Manager at Narrabri Hospital Deb asked herself why she had become a nurse. The answer came immediately.
“I wanted to do midwifery,” she said.
Deb oved to Lennox Head and on 16 January 2006 started midwifery training at Lismore Base Hospital with Charles Sturt University. Within weeks she had attended her first birth.
From the outset the continuity model confirmed her choice.
“I loved the culture of reflective practice and the intimacy of trust. People tell you things they would not tell their best friend. We are trusted, and confidentiality is not to be trifled with.”
The work was exhilarating and demanding. During one rain-soaked long weekend Deb was the only Lismore MGP midwife on call.
“I had seven births and slept at the hospital. It was wild, I’d have a quick sleep only to be woken again to attend another birth,” she said.
Home visits ranged from breathtaking coastal homes to a South Lismore lounge where a child introduced Ruby, the pet python, mid-baby check.
“I looked up and there was Ruby in my face,” she laughs.
By 2021 the physical toll of years on call and in the birthing suite caught up.
“I was too burnt out to keep working clinically and the physicality is huge. My dodgy knees had had enough,” she said.
Then, Deb stepped into what she calls her dream role. “Managing the MGPS across Byron, Murwillumbah and Tweed was my career nirvana,” said Deb.
“I went from doing the work to influencing it, supporting midwives to deliver continuity of care at scale. If I could not be with the women during their journey to motherhood, this was the next best thing.”
On 16 January 2026 Deb closed the loop, finishing exactly twenty years to the day after she began midwifery. The serendipity suited a career that started by accident, challenged old hierarchies and ended by strengthening the model of care she believes in most.
“I would do it again in a heartbeat,” she said. “I would recommend it to my daughter and my granddaughters. People still value us. Nursing and midwifery can take you around the world. For me, it brought me home.”
Deb in 1980.
Winning the 2019 Nursing and Midwifery Consumer Recognition Award.
Byron Midwifery Group Practice team with Deb.
Pictured Byron MGP team, from L: Sarah Vial, Sarah Beadman, Eleanor Bachle-Gardiner, Steph Sofer, Deb Young, Ella Belton, Leah Flynn, Zoe Davidson, Leah Daniel.