Community
15 March, 2024
Clive bows out
OUTGOING Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service (CHHHS) chairman Clive Skarott has paid tribute to the service’s staff as he prepares to hand over the reins in two weeks.
The 80-year-old finishes a seven-year term on March 31, and, while he has a long list of achievements including boosting the budget from $730m a year to $1.3 billion, he has praised the staff and the creation of a mostly happy and safe working environment as his greatest legacy.
“On one of my first days in the job, I went for a walk from Cairns Hospital’s A-block through to D-block,” he told Cairns Local News.
“There were staff hanging their heads because CHHHS had been the subject of negative media attention for many weeks.
“The feeling I got was people were doing their job, but no one was happy.
“Now I walk through the hospital, and everyone wants to say hello to me.”
Mr Skarott said he was determined to turn that situation around and believed today the morale was high and whenever he went through Cairns Hospital and other hospitals and health care centres people greeted him by name – “It’s Clive, not Mr Skarott,” he prefers.
He said on Monday he got into a lift with two First Nations people and they told him they were “so sorry to see you leaving. You have done a tremendous job, you have made a difference … I was tickled pink”.
“All I’ve ever wanted for our staff is for them to want to come to work every day and enjoy it as much as they can. Because if they’re happy, this is passed onto our patients and clients.”
He said when he first started, reducing staff was not an option to deal with an $80m debt, describing all employees as “terrific”.
“We have maintained and grown the staff. We didn’t believe cutting staff was the way to go,” Mr Skarott said.
‘I would like to thank our staff. Our staff are absolutely terrific.”
Mr Skarott said he tried to attend as many staff functions, huddles and meetings as possible – not to speak at – just to be there.
He hopes the new board and executive management will follow through with his intention to find a suitable accommodation building to house doctors, nurse and other staff during emergencies when they were unable to get home during events such as last December’s flooding that closed the city off north of the Barron River
Mr Skarott took over when CHHHS had been through turmoil. The board was sacked for mismanagement of a budget that had blown into an $80m debt, and the appointment of an administrator until a new board was formed in 2017. He said he had to build a full executive management team following the recent appointments of former chief executive officer Clare Douglas and chief financial officer Steve Thacker. It took months.
Mr Skarott said his main priority was reducing the debt which had been drastically reduced to the point he was confident it would be zero next year thanks to current chief executive officer Leena Singh, whom he described as “very skilful and knowledgeable”.
The establishment of community consultative committees was critical to listening to and informing the community about CHHHS, Mr Skarott said.
He said he believed Cairns Hospital would remain on the current Esplanade site but would have to consider ways to protect amenities, including the kitchen, from tidal surge.
Mr Skarott said it was vital that Cairns Hospital became a first-class tertiary institution – working with all universities – with first-year medical students on the job, as well as researchers and attracting the best doctors and nurses to the region.
Mr Skarott said the two-day-a week job quickly became five-days-a week but he didn’t do the job for recognition.
“I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I loved doing it, and the differences that have been made to the health service,” Mr Skarott said.
