Female leaders at Albury Wodonga Health reflect on challenges of Border service on International Women's Day

Janet Chapman had led Albury Wodonga Health in the past, but she could never imagine the circumstances that would see her return to the role.

The sudden passing of chief executive Michael Kalimnios in January meant Ms Chapman came back into leadership in an interim capacity.

"I was on leave at the time of Michael's passing and was straight into the job. Of course, there was no handover which is pretty unusual," she said.

"Just before Michael started I was in the role for three months.

"It's been challenging but rewarding as well. We have such a great team.

"We've had quite a focus on health and wellbeing. We've tried to look after staff and provide them with any support they need.

"One of the things with Michael's passing is we've had to acknowledge that it's had a personal impact on many in our service. We've lost someone we worked with who was a leader of our organisation and we knew personally."

Ms Chapman is one of seven women on the health service's executive leadership team - which is 70 per cent female.

She said awareness around gender equality and support for career progression for women had improved markedly.

"There's some examples where some are in acting positions because others are on leave and some positions are vacant, but that's a great opportunity for staff to have a chance to act in those roles and experience more senior positions," she said.

"Health is a very female-oriented organisation, I think about 80 per cent of our employees are women, but that doesn't always translate to seniority.

"I think it's really important for us to recognise that and support and promote women leaders.

"For me, I can totally count on other members of the executive. We work really strongly as a team.

"In that time of upheaval, the focus as a team has been on stability and reassurance. Yes, we've had some major change, but it doesn't mean everything is changing.

"Michael certainly initiated a number of significant changes in the organisation and it's our job to continue that."

To say the last 12 months have been eventful for Lucie Shanahan would be an understatement.

Ms Shanahan has led the COVID-19 response as executive director of a newly-formed public health unit, which she added to her mental health leadership responsibilities.

"It's been very busy with Code Brown, establishing the public health unit and our COVID-19 response for the community with contact tracing, vaccination, testing and all those bits and pieces, but I can honestly say it's some of the most fantastic work I've done in my career," she said.

"It's so responsive to the community and the fact we can provide such a great service locally is a great opportunity.

"Quite rightly, the department of health starts talking about the things that are going to happen and the community has an expectation the service is going to be available.

"It's about giving the community the information so they understand where we're at, but again doing the work as quickly as we can so we can provide the response people need."

Ms Shanahan said she had experienced a mixture of female and male managers throughout her career, but was proud to see such a strong representation of women at AWH.

"Often in many other industries as you get closer to the top, the number of women in senior positions does reduce a bit, even in health, but I think it comes back to the right person for the role. That's the choice that's made," she added.

Chief operating officer Emma Poland, who leads a team which delivers acute, sub-acute and community services, stressed the importance of effective communication to keep everyone together.

Ms Poland said has always been surrounded by strong female leadership.

"I'm not really one to get hung up on gender, for all of us it's about working with purpose and really focusing on a career rather than a job," she said.

"If you do what you do well and really prioritise human and professional relationships, often the rest takes care of itself."

"If you can find what matters to you and what your purpose is and follow that, it's a good start."

Acting executive director of capital redevelopment Susan Medlin said the pandemic had only accelerated the need for a new hospital for Albury-Wodonga, which she hopes to play big role in securing.

"The absolute need and understanding of how bad the infrastructure has been really clear in the last two years," she said.

"Hopefully we can attract some significant investment to bring us up to standard and expand our capacity."

Ms Medlin said it was a wonderful dynamic of women on the AWH leadership team.

"In the business I'm in, they're all engineers and construction dudes, so actually having a bunch of women to talk to is fantastic," she said.

"I think we actually all think alike and it's just been great.

"Janet's leadership has been amazing through these tough times losing Michael, but there's new blood coming in and lots of really great ideas for the future."

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AWH leaders know too well the impacts working two years on the COVID front line has had on staff.

Acting director of nursing and midwifery Linda Hudec said the emotional toll had been noticeable.

"The environment they've had to operate in over these last couple of years has been really challenging with the tier three PPE and supporting families through the challenges of tough visitor policies," she said.

"They really feel it emotionally when they're not able to support families to come in because of the visitation policies."

Ms Hudec said a national nursing shortage was not a new concern, but it has been exacerbated by COVID-19.

"We're seeing nurses decide to retire early because it's been a really difficult time," she said.

"We then have those other nurses who were putting off retirement because they wanted to support their colleagues through this time and they're now fatigued and starting to leave as well."

Ms Hudec has only been with AWH for a year, but hadn't seen this level of women in leadership roles earlier in her career.

"Notwithstanding I've worked with some amazing male leaders in my time as well that have done a lot for the areas of health I've worked in, but women tend to bring a different perspective," she said.

"There's an appreciation for some of the challenges, particularly promoting things like work-life balance, diversity and inclusion.

"I think the difference I've found with the executive here is not only that it's heavily female-focused, but it's a diverse group as well.

"We all tend to think differently and tend to bring something different to the table.

"It's a really great legacy of Michael and what he's been able to do for the health service in that space."

Allied health has faced similar challenges.

"It's predominantly a young workforce in allied health and there's lots of people with babies and young children, so trying to home school, work and self-isolate is tough," executive director Karyn O'Loughlin said.

"But it's like anything, people pull together when they need to and help each other, which I think is the most important thing."

Ms O'Loughlin said she enjoyed recognising the effort of her female colleagues on International Women's Day.

"Over the years Janet and I have done a couple of women's day and it's great," she said.

"Lucie and I have worked together so to see her progress has been great.

"It's amazing to have the team we do because it doesn't normally happen."

Simone Woolhouse has seen the effects first-hand as acting executive director of people and culture.

"We really haven't had a break which has then put pressure on the workforce in terms of shortage and trying to get talent through the door," she said.

"We've navigated through Code Brown by standing up a redeployed workforce, so we've been trying to support our people through that because it's a time where they feel quite vulnerable and fatigue levels continue to rise."

Ms Woolhouse came to AWH from a corporate background and has loved her time working alongside the rest of the executive.

"We're so privileged to have such a strong team of female leaders. They all do such a wonderful job," she said.

"I came from a corporate background where I sat on the senior leadership team and it was dominated by male workers.

"It's really refreshing to sit on a senior leadership team with such a strong presence of women, but such capable women too."

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