NT Health chief executive Professor Catherine Stoddart resigns

The Northern Territory’s top health bureaucrat has resigned after nearly four years in the role.

THE Northern Territory’s top health bureaucrat has resigned after nearly four years in the role.

NT Health chief executive Professor Catherine Stoddart has resigned, but will remain in the role until February 2021.

Prof Stoddart, according to an NT government statement, will be returning to Western Australia to be closer to her family.

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She started in the role in March 2017.

Her deputy Mr David Braines-Mead will act in the role while a replacement is found.

“Being the CEO of NT Health during these unprecedented times and working with the amazing people of NT health, and Territorians more broadly has been the highlight of my career,” Prof Stoddart said.

NT Health Chief Executive, Catherine Stoddart speaks to the media.

Health Minister Natasha Fyles said Prof Stoddart had made “an outstanding contribution to the NT Health Department that she has led for four years – in particular playing an active role in the Territory Labor Government’s COVID-19 response”.

“Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic Professor Stoddart has been an integral part of the Security and Emergency Subcommittee of Cabinet (SEMC), has led the NT’s frontline health response across airports, health facilities, quarantine centres and borders, and the recruitment of 100 frontline staff to assist the COVID-19 response,” she said.

Before serving as chief executive of NT Health Prof Stoddart was a deputy chief nurse and deputy chief executive at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in the United Kingdom for three years.