Ms Harding is associate nurse unit manager for the Ballarat Health Services' palliative care ward. She said most nurses take this career path because they loved being about people and caring for others - this was at the fore during the coronavirus pandemic.

International Nurses Day on Tuesday offered Ms Harding what she said was a good chance to reflect on the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale, and her legacy in care.

"We're all feeling we're really at the frontlines but we're trained for this, we want to be here and we want to do it," Ms Harding said.

"International Nurses Day is acknowledged a bit more this year and acknowledging why we do this."

Visitation to Gandarra is limited under tight COVID-19 restrictions but decisions are made case-by-case on compassionate grounds.

Ms Harding said most people have been understanding, and have been more so the longer the restrictions have panned out. She said people understood this was about best protecting them and the people they love.

Fellow Gandarra nurse Jenny Jenkins said a big morning tea, lots of kind presents and messages really made the work she did as a nurse feel appreciated.

Ms Jenkins said governments highlighting the importance of emergency workers during the pandemic had likely highlighted a nurses' caring role more but the community response had been amazing.

"Just even going to the supermarket on shopping day and people constantly doing things like cakes," Ms Jenkins said. "...It gives you a little boost. Just knowing people do appreciate you."

Ms Jenkins said being a nurse was about showing kindness and compassion, including with patients' families, and advocating for patients' needs.

Nurses make up the largest single workforce in Australia with about 380,000 nurses nationwide.

Australia's first Commonwealth chief nursing and midwifery director Rosemary Bryant, who was also a Royal College of Nursing Australia executive director said Florence Nightingale would be "blown away" by the global efforts of the nursing fraternity to defeat COVID-19.

"It was her work in the Crimean War that led to modern infection control and the saving of so many lives," Dr Bryant said.

"She was the first person to demonstrate that cleanliness and distancing hospital beds were the key to fighting disease."

International Nurses Day theme this year is nursing the world to health focusing on the challenges the world faces to good health and the contribution nurses can make to change this.

Nurses have played a pivotal frontline role in testing people in Ballarat for COVID-19, both those with or without symptoms, in the community.

More than 5200 people were tested for COVID-19 the past fortnight in Ballarat during a statewide screening blitz. This includes people with and without symptoms across three community-based testing sites and pop-up workplace testing.

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