Carlton Supporters Club

I think that's a huge stretch to associate Matrons climbing the career ladder with AFL Past Players getting jobs for the boys.

I've a relative who was a "Matron" and became a senior business manager at a major Melbourne Metro hospital, it was a 24x7 job overloaded with bureaucracy and a continual ongoing battle against bean counters putting profit before health care. Business hours, after hours, weekends, holidays, while in transit, 24x7 it never stopped, there was never any clocking off. Her priority was to preserve the level of care, first and foremost, that is the function of hospitals, not creating jobs, not creating profits, not paying bonusses or dividends.

In my opinion she could have left health and earned far more doing a far easier job in corporate or industrial circles, so I've nothing but admiration for those who do this type of work with a relatively extreme workload and usually at far less remuneration than some suited up bureaucrat or executive bean counter.

sounds like a megalomaniac who wouldn't delegate to me.

Hard to delegate when the bean counters leave you understaffed.

What you're implying that business people can't run a business that they aren't subject matter experts in.

sounds like a megalomaniac who wouldn't delegate to me.

The hospital runs with or without the executive team.

Thry I have a female friend who has just left the hospital industry mainly because of (her words not mine) "too many female managers who were utter bitches that I wouldn't piss on if they were on fire".
She reckons she will never work for a female manager ever again.

Not at all that conclusion is an assumption you have made.

My perspective is that you are better off being cared for by and under the guidance of a person who exclusively has your health and wellbeing prioritised over profit, rather than someone who is going to be paid a bonus for cutting costs or increasing margin.

Most health managers / executives are not health care workers, they are business people. I know the top person at three different Melb hospitals, through my R&D work on additive printing for replacement hips and cranial caps for cancer or acute injuries, and not one is a doctor or Matron, they are all professional business types mostly that have come out of bureaucracy although one is a former industrial pharmacy executive.

I don't know a Matron on the planet who would accept cutting nursing staffing given the option, they do not do that job for decades first to get were they get by being focussed on finances, and I can't say I ever meet a nurse that got into the gig for the cash!

In 2015 my oldest was rushed to the RCH as soon as he was born and spent the first 2 months of his life there.
In 2017 my youngest was rushed to the RCH the day after he was born and spent his first month of his life there and that year a further 2 months from multiple stays.

The hospital then was unbelievable, you couldn't ask for better care.

Last year my youngest spent a week there and my wife and I thought wow this place has slipped a bit, the care not as good as it once was.
Last week he was there again and the care was terrible. They have hardly any nursing staff and the ones that are there don't care.

In 2015 my oldest was rushed to the RCH as soon as he was born and spent the first 2 months of his life there.
In 2017 my youngest was rushed to the RCH the day after he was born and spent his first month of his life there and that year a further 2 months from multiple stays.

The hospital then was unbelievable, you couldn't ask for better care.

Last year my youngest spent a week there and my wife and I thought wow this place has slipped a bit, the care not as good as it once was.
Last week he was there again and the care was terrible. They have hardly any nursing staff and the ones that are there don't care.

I'd be digging a little deeper before I came to any conclusions based on anecdotes. Myself, my brother, and my wife have all been in the workforce a long time, and we've all had male and female managers (my brother works in the medical industry). Each of us can point to males and females that have been great, and also those that have been lousy.

A system under extreme pressure will bring out the worst in some (resorting to type) and the best in others. But everyone has a limit in terms of workload and expectation.

The first question I ask myself is how the hell did our health care system become so vulnerable, so below par when really needed to stand up? You probably have to go back to when Kennett tore the guts out of health care (mental health included) to satisfy the bottom line (loot). Then successive governments not being bold, caring or visionary enough to effect meaningful repairs and growth.

Some people forget that the health care system is made up of people.
People have been under ever increasing amounts of stress.
People have been basically underpaid for a long time.
People have started choosing quality of life over the stresses of working within the health care system.

I know of 2 people who took early retirement.
1 who started having babies again to get themselves out of that system.
Several others who have contemplated a completely different career path.

Don't underestimate the fragilty of people in the healthcare system.