What is ecoBiz?

ecoBiz is a partnership with the Queensland Government and when it first came out I was a new Director out here looking for ways to get the hospital out there, and in the community—noticed in the community. And a lot of staff, including myself, were interested in the environment and what we could do, how we could do our bit for the environment. Because we were the first hospital ever involved with it, they were quite excited to have us on board, and being a smaller hospital, it was a great way to start for them as well.

What was the staff reaction to the initiatives?

We put it to the staff initially—as to whether we should do it—we thought, “Well, we’re not going to be able to do it unless the staff are on board and happy to do it”. So we—at one of our meetings we just put it forward, and everyone was really keen to be involved.

They’ve been much more innovative than I thought they would be. They think of things that you didn’t expect them to.

I guess they all feel responsible for every patient that comes in the door, so therefore that responsibility goes onto the environment as well, so it all seems to link in for some wonderful reason and it’s just, yeah, a fabulous place to be.

Tell us about your maternity unit?

We are—we have a maternity unit, which we have around 460 to 500 deliveries a year, so we only have two to three obstetricians that work out of here at one time. So we’re a small, we call boutique hospital, so yeah they get very special care the women that come here.