Welcome LISA NORMAN

General Manager, South East Melbourne Hospitals

Welcome to our first edition of In the Loop for 2023.

I do hope that most of our caregivers took the time over the summer holidays to enjoy a much needed break. We work tirelessly over the year to ensure the people in our care are well looked after and in order to be able to do this, we must first take care of ourselves.

Whether it’s spent holidaying, catching up with friends and family, focusing on your garden or pursuing personal interests, breaks from the regular work routine help us maintain a healthy work-life balance and prepares us for returning to work feeling refreshed and ready to tackle another busy year ahead.

Before I focus on 2023, I’d like to acknowledge just how lovely it was to be able to close out 2022 with our first SEM hospital-wide end-of-year party. It was a great opportunity to come together and celebrate the year’s achievements as a team and to also celebrate the recipients of our annual Caregiver of the Year Awards. With the high calibre of nominations received it was an extremely hard process to narrow down the winners. We have an exceptional group of caregivers working hard across all three of our hospital locations who are all very deserving of acknowledgement but for the purposes of this award we rely on fellow caregivers to nominate their colleagues for this recognition. You can find out who won a Caregiver of the Year title, who was highly commended and the list of nominees on page 4-5.

Moving on from last year’s news and looking ahead at SJGHC on a national level, we are midway through our organisation’s St John of God Health Care Strategy 20202025. However, given it was endorsed prior to the pandemic taking hold, a refresh of the original plan was undertaken in order to identify key strategic initiatives that will help us continue to work toward our organisational goals.

While SJGHC’s core focus on patient and client experience, as well as clinical outcomes has not shifted, the workforce shortages and rising costs that we are experiencing as a result of COVID-19 will provide an ongoing challenge for the organisation to mitigate going forward.

We’re also seeing changes in our Group leadership team with the departure of CEO Dr Shane Kelly late last year. In the interim, existing COO Bryan Pyne has assumed the role of Group CEO in an acting capacity until an executive search is undertaken and a permanent replacement can be appointed. Stepping in for Bryan in the meantime has been SJG Murdoch Hospital CEO Ben Edwards.

Further changes include the resignation of Group Director Community Services and CEO St John of God Accord Lisa Evans, who many of our Berwick Hospital caregivers would know and whom many had the pleasure of working with during her time with us as Director of Nursing.

The following arrangements have been made to accommodate her departure:

• Michael Hogan has taken on the position of Acting Group Director Community Services while continuing his role as the CEO of St John of God Bendigo Hospital.

• Silvana Gugliandolo is operating as Acting CEO Accord.

Although significant Group leadership changes are afoot, it’s business as usual for our SEM hospitals. I look forward to the year ahead and sharing more information on the planning of Berwick Hospital’s Stage 4 redevelopment in the months to come.

If you’d like to keep abreast of the organisation’s vision to become the best performing health care organisation in Australia by 2025, you can find a “refreshed” version of SJGHC’s overall five-year strategy for FY23-25 period on Cora.

Until next time, take care.

Lisa Norman