Welcome

Lisa Norman

General Manager, South East Melbourne Hospitals

Recently Group Chief Executive Officer, Bryan Pyne, emailed all caregivers across St John of God Health Care advising that, as we continue to emerge from the COVID pandemic, an organisation-wide review of all parts of the organisation is underway. The aim of the review initiative is to make sure St John of God Health Care is in the best possible shape to meet the evolving health care needs of our communities.

Here across our South East Melbourne hospitals, our HMC and leadership teams are managing our inputs to this review.

During the course of this review some hard decisions may be taken. This may result in changes to services, a reduction in caregiver numbers in some areas, and increases in others to support services that have growth potential.

You have my commitment that all decisions will have the best interests of our community, our patients and our caregivers at heart.

In the immediate term, it is most important that we all continue to be disciplined financial stewards and maintain a high degree of rigour around budgets and tracking.

As Bryan mentioned, we are not in this alone. Many organisations (including other healthcare providers) are in the same boat, working hard to regain their pre-COVID position.

As an organisation, we are focussing on this now, so we are well prepared for the new financial year and can be back to the financial position we need to be in 12 months’ time.

The past few years have been tough, and this next period brings a new set of challenges. The commitment and professionalism that you all demonstrated during the pandemic gives me every confidence that we will successfully push through this period as well. We are truly grateful for the work you do.

Forums have been held recently at each site, providing caregivers with the chance to hear from from HMC members. They were also given an opportunity to ask questions.

Naturally, if you have more questions about any of the above, please reach out to your Manager or contact me directly via email on lisa.norman@sjog.org.au. I will be on leave until the end June, so during this time please contact Linda Allen Acting General Manager South East Melbourne. Linda.allen@sjog.org.au

Lisa Norman General Manager – St John of God South East Melbourne Hospitals CEO – St John of God Berwick Hospital and Frankston Rehab Hospital