SINCE her appointment as Chief Executive Officer of Bass Coast Health, after a six-month interim role, from March 2016, Jan Child’s life has pretty much been on hold.
From addressing a range of structural problems with the old Wonthaggi hospital and BCH’s other health, community, and aged care services; there’s been the $115 million stage one of the new hospital, the rapid expansion in demand and, oh yes, the pandemic, to deal with.
It’s been all-consuming.
But yesterday Jan found time to spend the day with her mum, Bette Allsop and brother, Tony, to share the announcement that she had been named on the Australia Day Honours List as a recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the General Division, for service to community health.
“It’s fair to say, when I got the email to say I was nominated, I was really chuffed,” said Jan.
“But I wasn’t going to accept initially because I’ve only been one part of the Bass Coast Health journey. It hasn’t happened because of me,” she said.
“It has happened because there are many health care workers who truly believe in the public health system. These are good people who devote their lives to improving care locally because this local health system is for their friends, family members and neighbours.
“The people who work in public health are in my view, extraordinary people, and they come to work to do their best.
“The last few years during COVID have been the toughest, and workforce challenges nationwide and worldwide are really having a big impact, but the BCH staff have been so resilient, and compassionate during that time; they work hard to build their skills and they stretch themselves, to be better, every day.
“I couldn’t be more proud of them, and the difference they have made over the years.
“I know it’s a cliché to say it, but this award is about them and in the end, that’s why I accepted, as some recognition of what we have all been able to do, so far.
“Apparently, you never get to know who nominated you, but I can tell from what they wrote that its people who have followed the Bass Coast Health journey. They must be really proud as well of what we have achieved, so that was another reason to accept the award, on behalf of the many community members who have supported BCH.
“I celebrated yesterday with my family, and I’ve got to say that my dear old mum was just so proud, and I’m sure my dad was looking down with a tear in his eye, as well.”
Jan says she grew up having “the best childhood, with the best family”, in a small country town called Serviceton.
“It was a very strong community, everyone knew everything that was going on, and we all pitched in together. It was a time where we didn’t have any electronic devices except the radio and record player, so as kids, we made our own fun, played lots of sport, left the house in the morning and got home for meals and listened to Blue Hills in the evening.”
Her first paid job was working at the local weighbridge during wheat harvest and said she learnt a strong work and community ethic from her mum and dad who ran the general store, provided a railway taxi service, and were “knee deep in the footy, netball, golf and bowling clubs”.
“Dad donned the shearing gear annually, and my mum was the Shire President in Kaniva Shire – I couldn’t have had better grounding for the things that constitute good community values.”
She decided to take up nursing after the experience of seeing her Nana go to the Ballarat Hospital for care because there was nothing available locally.
“I remember how distressing Nana’s death was for mum and all of us, because she was so far away from her family at a time when she needed us most.
“That whole experience, seeing her in pain, pushed me to want to be a nurse, and so I made the big move to Horsham (Wimmera Base Hospital) in 1981 where I did my Registered Nurse training. I graduated in 1984, worked a couple of years there, and then came to Melbourne and over the years, did some uni time to complete a Graduate Diploma in Behavioural Sciences and a Masters in Public Health.
“I have worked in many public health services since that time, as an acute/ED nurse, youth worker, alcohol and drug worker and aged care nurse. I also did a stint in the Department of Health for a couple of years, and eventually found my way to Peninsula Health.
“I was there for over a decade, and thought I would never leave. It was one of the smaller metro services when I started there, and we were very connected to the local community, and most of the staff knew each other.
“It was a dream job, an excellent place to work, and I had the best teacher and mentor in the then CEO, Sherene Devanesan.
“I was the Director of Nursing/Chief Operating Officer, when I got a call from the department of health asking if I would come to Bass Coast Health for a few months until a new CEO was recruited.
“I had only ever been to this part of Gippsland once before, a few months prior, as part of a Peninsula Health team, when we spent a few days at Wonthaggi reviewing BCH services.
“My daughter had just started Year 11, and my husband was working for Vic Pol, but we decided we could do it for three months.
“I drove down and back from Wonthaggi to Beaumaris where my family lived, and I remember on one of my first days, the Sentinel-Times’ front page was ‘Hospital in Crisis’, and I met Graeme Cock from Phillip Island Medical and Health Action Group Inc (PIMHAG) who told me, in no uncertain terms, that Phillip Island needed more from Bass Coast Health -that was my initiation into the Bass Coast Community!
“Graeme is one of the many people who took the time to teach me about Bass Coast, and BCH would not have achieved what it has, without the many hundreds of passionate community members who have partnered with us to improve what we provide.
“Working at BCH was a bit like coming home; it was a really strong community, with magnificent people, and it had the bonus of being in a beautiful part of the world – so it was a pretty easy decision to apply for the permanent role. Since then, I have lived between Beaumaris and Inverloch.
“I think I was very lucky to come at the time I did.
“BCH was a renovators’ delight, as they say. It had fabulous bones, but it needed a strong team and vision, and we needed to make some significant changes to bring it into line with what other health services had been doing for years.
“Contemporary workforce changes; stronger partnering with others including other health services; we needed to engage more with and listen better to our community; we had to create an infrastructure plan to remedy our aging infrastructure, and get some new infrastructure (and how lucky are we to have benefited so much from our State Government’s investment.
“We developed a new Strategic Plan and Clinical Services Plan to roadmap our growth from a local service to a sub-regional service. And in doing all that, we have grown our service offerings significantly, achieved our goal of being sub-regional and are the beneficiary of an additional $50 million recurrent funding per annum, all of which means Bass Coast people can get more, good quality, public health care, locally.”
Ms Child said it all took a great deal of courage and commitment from the board, ably led at the time by Don Paproth.
“Initially we worked alongside a team that included the CEOs who now lead Koo Wee Rup, Gippsland Southern, and South Gippsland Hospital and over the years, I have been lucky to be able to come to work every day and work with a fabulous Bass Coast Health team that comprises some of the best health leaders I have ever had the privilege to work with in my 40 plus years.
“These leaders aren’t just the managers, they include people like Mick in Security, Alex one of our porters, Ramesh one of our cleaners and Sheryl and Colin who everyone know. It’s so hard to name just a few but they represent the 1200 people across the organisation who come to work and give their all, because they too are passionate about BCH.
“We don’t get it right every time, because we are so dependent on human factors, and we still have a long way to go until our Clinical Services Plan is fully realised, but we have made a fabulous start.
“I’ve been so lucky to lead this work, and we have been hugely blessed to have the support of our extraordinary community who donate hours of their time, and money to improving our services.”
There’s also the small matter of a $290 million state government election promise of funding for Stage 2 of the Wonthaggi Hospital build to be squared away, and the on-going challenge of finding enough health=care staff to provide the much-needed services.
As well as her role at Bass Coast Health, the citation also lists Ms Child’s other achievements:
* Registered Nurse.
* Surveyor, Australian Council of Healthcare Services.
* A range of roles with the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services including Peninsula Health, Alfred Health, Community Health, and various alcohol and drug agencies.
