A Lifetime in Nursing: “You Just Have to Keep Working at It”

Meet Olga Saley, a nurse who spent more than 60 years in service to the people of Alberta.

When she reflects on her nursing career, she is quick to downplay it.

“I don’t really have anything brilliant to say,” she insists.

But her story tells something far more powerful.

Her journey into nursing began more than six decades ago, after working at a health unit in Athabasca as a steno technician. 

“There wasn’t money to send me to university like my sister,” she recalls. “But the nurses there were wonderful. They encouraged me, and I guess that’s why I went into nursing.”

Encouraged by public health nurses, she entered nursing school in January 1962. She graduated that same year and never really left the profession.

“I worked ever since,” she says simply.

That work carried her through decades of change in health care, eventually in areas including STDs and HIV care. She remained in nursing until October 2025, when she stepped away to care for her husband.

“It was silly for me to be going and doing STDs and HIV when he needed so much care,” she explains. “My manager was very lovely and understood. I just said I can’t come back, and that was it.”

What kept her in nursing for so long? Her love for her patients. 

“I just liked it. I liked looking after patients. To me, the patient is the most important.”

But she has also seen how the profession has shifted over time.

“Nowadays, especially in long-term care, it’s a shocker,” she says candidly. “They’re skilled and so forth, but they don’t seem to have the time to really look at the patient. It’s not the patient that’s the focus anymore - it’s everything else around it.”

She believes staffing and system pressures play a role, but she also points to broader structural changes in Alberta’s health system.

“I don’t think a lot of the changes were necessary,” she says, referring to the restructuring and eventual dismantling of Alberta Health Services as it was previously known. “And I think it makes it more difficult for patients to access the care they need.”

Still, she holds onto the belief that nursing is about persistence and intention.

“You just have to keep working at it,” she repeats. “Thinking about the patient and the patient’s needs, and putting the patient first.”

She also speaks to another change she has observed in more recent years - the experiences of internationally educated nurses working within the system.

“There have been a number of nurses working as aides or as LPNs,” she says. “They’re not certified here, or they haven’t done the exams, and some are scared to do them. Others have tried and not done well, so they’ve gone back to being an LPN, which I find sad.”

When asked about what she would say to the government in response, she is clear.

“I think the government has to try harder - not only to recruit them, but to make sure they have the proper help here.”

Even as she reflects on challenges, she does not lose sight of what nursing has meant to her.

“It’s a wonderful career,” she says. “And for those who are in it, just stick with it. Keep thinking about the patient.”

As Nurses Week is recognized across the profession, her story is a reminder of a legacy built on decades of showing up, caring for patients, and quietly holding the centre of a changing health system together.

“Just keep going,” she says. “That’s all there is to it.”