Newcomers is a regular series featuring the impressions and experiences of residents who are new to Newmarket. To share your story, send an email to [email protected]
Registered nurse Cristina Orzales wanted a change in pace when she sought a job at Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket.
After working for many years in hospitals in Toronto and Mississauga, Orzales said she sought a different setting than the emergency room, and was intrigued by the triage co-ordinator position at the Newmarket hospital.
That job eventually brought her from Brampton to Newmarket, where she now lives on Bayview Parkway.
“I love the small town feel, and everything is walkable and bikeable,” she said of living in Newmarket in the past two months. “I love it here.”
Orzales has been in nursing since her time in the Philippines, a profession she chose to help her secure a better future, and that helped her immigrate to Canada in 1997.
In the Philippines, nursing was "a number 1 stepping stone to get a better future,” she said. “No regrets.”
She settled in East York and worked in several larger hospitals. But after 18 years working in emergency rooms at Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga, Orzales said she was ready for something different and less competitive. She applied for an office position at Southlake.
"Working in the emergency room and experiencing everything,” she said, “I’ve experienced all of that. You want work-life balance now … there’s no more on-call, no more lead aprons, no night shift, no weekends.”
She moved to town with her husband and three children; two are adults and one attending Sacred Heart Catholic High School.
Life in Newmarket is very different from the larger centres, Orzales said. She expressed that she has good neighbours and has joined some community Facebook groups that have helped her feel connected to the community, more so than when lived in Brampton.
“Everything is different. The people are nicer,” she said. “Even in the hospital, I just felt like people are nicer."
The different parts of town have also been positive, she said, with Upper Canada Mall and Main Street both good destinations. She said she has also been surprised by how dog-friendly the events are.
“That was a big culture shock, that people are open to animals,” she said, adding that was not always the case where she lived previously.
Orzales said traffic is an issue on Davis Drive but added that it’s better on weekends with fewer commuters. Driving also feels more secure, she said, adding that her son's insurance company cut his rate in half in the move.
“You don’t have to rush. You don’t have to take over someone else if they’re driving according to the speed limit,” she said. "It’s nice.”
The 47-year-old said she is thinking about retirement and how the smaller bungalow her family lives in now could be a location for that.
“A nice bungalow, a good job to retire to, a good community to retire to in the next 10 to 20 years,” she said. “If it becomes busy, I thought Barrie’s just there, you can move farther if we want a more quiet place. But I can see myself staying here and retiring.”
