Local Hero – Dr Jane Greacen OAM

by Trevor Stow

Jane Greacen was born in NSW to farming parents. As a child Jane and her family moved to Adelaide. She was educated at public schools before entering Adelaide University where she enrolled in medicine.

Studying medicine involved a 6 year university course and 1 year as an intern at Royal Adelaide Hospital. This hospital was huge, being 1km long from one end to the other. In those days she worked up to 36 hours straight, culminating in an 80 hour week. This was exhausting work but Jane was exposed to many facets of medicine including delivery of babies, anaesthetics, general surgery, sometimes without supervision and lots of emergency medicine. It was a great grounding for a young doctor but it could be exhausting at times.

Jane was in this hospital in the 1970’s when many of the victims of Cyclone Tracey, Darwin were evacuated to Adelaide. They arrived with a vast array of injuries including broken bones, glass lacerations and penetrating injuries that needed immediate attention. People were often in a state of shock and required support. Jane remembers the emergency room being hectic.

As a learning hospital, Jane felt that she was really privileged to be at the Adelaide, particularly as she learnt anatomy on cadavers, which are bodies of people who donated their bodies to science. She was able to dissect different parks of the bodies examining nerves, blood vessels etc. This was great experience for a young doctor.

In those days, she was able to start practising in general practice at the young age of 23 years. Now a days, it is common for interns to do a further 6 to 10 years of study and exams after university, before being left to work unsupervised. Jane believes that the modern doctor is very well trained. Jane moved to Melbourne and took up a position in general practice in East Bentleigh and worked as the first Hospital Medical Officer appointed at Moorabbin Hospital. Over a period of time Jane became involved in occupational medicine which involved seeing more patients with occupational injuries. In those days Occupational Health and Safety was quite lax compared to today.

It was not uncommon to see patients with a wide range of work-related injuries who may not have had support from their employer or the government. Often these patients were recent migrants to Australia and would speak little English. Jane was responsible for setting up the first Work Injury Support Group in Australia which proved to be very successful and beneficial to the patients.

Jane held a number of positions in medicine over her long career. She moved to East Gippsland in the 1990’s to be with her partner, Dr. David Campbell, who had set up a clinic in Lakes Entrance, known as Cunninghame Arm Medical Centre.

In 1997 Jane was appointed CEO of Rural Workforce Agency Victoria (RWAV). RWAV was established to support the recruitment of doctors into rural and remote Australia. RWAV was and is a very successful organisation that attracted a lot of doctors into these rural and remote areas. Jane remained in this position for 10 years.

Following her time with RWAV, Jane took up a position with Bairnsdale Regional Hospital as Director of Medical Services. This involved managing the medical workforce and the medical services within the hospital. She has also worked as Director of Medical Services at other country hospitals at various times as well as continuing to work in general practice.

In 2000 Jane could see that important work needed doing in the Aboriginal community. She approached Gippsland and East Gippsland Aboriginal Co-Operative (GEGAC) with a view to becoming involved in Aboriginal health. They readily accepted her offer. Her involvement with the local Aboriginal Community has continued to this day. GEGAC was established in the 1975, as the Aboriginal community recognised the need to have their own health service. Jane was a longstanding and valued doctor with GEGAC.

Today things have improved to the extent of GEGAC contracts up to 6 part time GP’s and registrars, together with a team of nurses, dentists and Aboriginal health workers. Specialist services are also available to the Aboriginal community.

In 2017, Jane set up a branch practice of Cunninghame Arm in MacLeod Street Bairnsdale called “Doctor Janes Place” which was named by her patients. This clinic was set up mainly for her Aboriginal patients. Jane has seen a significant improvement to health services for the Aboriginal Community over her time in East Gippsland. She will be sadly missed by her many patients and by the numerous health organisations that she is currently linked to. Don’t be surprised if you see her pop up somewhere in the health area. An experienced and passionate doctor like Jane is sure to get requests to help and will find it hard to completely bow out.

Happy retirement Jane, and keep up the good work on East Gippsland Shire Council.

In 2018, Jane was appointed the Medal of the Order of Australia for her services to medicine and community health. An extraordinarily special time in her life that left her utterly humbled.

About 3 years ago Mallacoota District Health Services & Support invited Jane onto their board as the medical adviser. She held this position until recently. Mallacoota is a remote area and many of the health services are difficult to access. MDHSS have a close relationship with Bairnsdale Regional Health and health professionals fly into Mallacoota on a regular basis.

In 2020 Jane stood for and was elected as a councillor of the East Gippsland Shire Council for 4 years. This takes up a considerable amount of her time. After 50 odd years in medicine, Jane has now decided to retire from medicine and she intends to peruse her many other interests.