Irena Srbinovska may be best known for winning Locky Gilbert’s heart on The Bachelor, but now she’s turned the focus to her life as a nurse.
The 32-year-old took to Instagram on Tuesday with a heartbreaking plea on behalf of the health workers across Australia still battling the effects of the pandemic.
Sharing a post titled “Healthcare workers are sharing nightmare stories on reddit about how fkd their jobs are right now” on her Stories, the reality star said she totally agreed with the harrowing accounts.
Irena shared this emotional plea on Instagram.
(Image: Instagram)“The current situation is horrible and has been for the last two years,” she said of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“Speaking from experience, I can honestly say that things are not getting any better or easier on healthcare workers.
“We are all exhausted. We are not okay.”
The WA native returned to her “regular” job as a nurse in 2022 after finding love (and fame) on The Bachelor and has since been open about the difficult return to work.
WATCH: Irena and Locky return to Bachelor date spot
She and Locky took a year off to travel around Australia in 2021 following their success on the show in 2020, so she escaped some of the worst of the pandemic.
They then settled in Perth, where Irena returned to work in the healthcare sector and was confronted with the devastating effects of the pandemic on nurses.
“When I left Melbourne and left nursing I was going through a really rough time during COVID, but I was also very burnt out in general,” she told WHO in March, adding she has a “hard time going back”.
“And then going back I was so excited… but I’ve actually started to get anxiety going back, because when I got back to nursing in Perth they were just at the beginning of the pandemic.”
Locky and Irena recently settled in Melbourne and bought a dog.
(Image: Instagram)Confessing that she went into “full panic mode”, Irena said the job was more stressful than ever and her new post suggests that hasn’t changed months later.
“Two years ago healthcare workers around the world were thrown into it and it was sort of like ‘fend for yourself and good luck’, so at least this time I know what to do and what not to do,” she added.
Irena and Locky have returned to Melbourne in the months since, settling in a new home they plan to renovate together. They announced their engagement in June.
