Toowoomba Hospital executive director Shirley-Anne Gardiner takes on new job at Momentum Mental Health

After shepherding the Darling Downs through the Covid pandemic, Shirley-Anne Gardiner is stepping down from her role as the Toowoomba Hospital executive director to focus on her passion, providing grassroots mental healthcare

When Shirley-Anne Gardiner stepped out of the cinema after watching Top Gun Maverick, she looked at her phone to see seven missed calls, four text messages and a welfare check, all from her colleagues at the Toowoomba Hospital.

As the hospital’s executive director she was on call 24-hours a day, seven days a week which left little time for life’s little joys.

The cascade of missed calls led Ms Gardiner to the realisation that seven years leading the hospital was enough.

“It was a tough gig, and you cannot sustain that for long,” she said.

Through her work with the Vulnerable Communities Group, Ms Gardiner got to know the people behind Momentum Mental Health, and their work resonated with her passion for community health.

So when a position as CEO came up, she jumped at it.

On Friday, she stepped away for the high-pressure demands of overseeing 2000-personel in a major regional hospital to working with a tight-knit team of 15 social workers and office staff.

“I have done well for myself, but I love that quote from Steve Jobs about not wanting to be the richest man in the cemetery.

“Happiness is way more important than money, and life-work balance means so much.

“I didn’t feel like I was able to do that as much as I wanted to in the role at Queensland Health,” she said.

“I am a social anthropologist, and I am really interested in the social determinants of health.

“Your health is dictated by the things that happen to you in life, and your postcode is a stronger predictor of your health outcomes than your genetic code.”

Shirley-Anne Gardiner was 2021’s Toowoomba Citizen of the Year recipient. She has stepped down from her role as Toowoomba Hospital’s executive director to lead Momentum Mental Health. Picture: Kevin Farmer

In the new role Ms Gardiner will bring her extensive network of social services and the region’s business community to aid residents experiencing mental illness.

This includes finding partnerships to place Momentum’s clients in services that address their wide range of obstacles.

“If a client wants to connect with other people, we will take them to a walking club or the library,” she said.

“We do not do acute care, but people can come here and feel better.”

Despite feeling somewhat burned by the demands of the past seven years, Mrs Gardiner said she was proud of her work and the changes she had implemented.

“Even though Covid was tough, we managed it so well,” she said.

“We implemented a heap of new infrastructure, we opened new wards, and we expanded the Emergency Department twice.

“When I started we had about 140 people a day come though emergency, and now we have days of 200.

“We are one of the best performing hospitals with zero long waits for elective surgery.

“When I walked down the corridors, I felt like it did not matter if you were a doctor or a nurse, everyone treated each other with respect.”

Ms Gardiner defended her former colleagues in the face of reports from the media and from politicians who criticise wait times and ambulance ramping.

“It really annoyed me because it is so demoralising for the staff,” she said.

Former TRC Mayor Paul Antonio presents Shirley-Anne Gardiner the Toowoomba District Citizen of the Year award on Australia Day 2021 at Picnic Point.

“When I left we had 80 ambulances a day going to the hospital, it used to be 50 a day, but 100 per cent of life-threatening cases are seen straight away.

“We have world-class staff, some of our surgeons could work anywhere, but they chose to work for us.

“And it is not necessarily the Emergency Department that is the issue, it is the back end where the wards are all full with Covid patients.”

When Ms Gardiner left the hospital, about 10 per cent of patients were there with Covid, down from about 33 per cent at the height of the pandemic.

The Covid response earned Ms Gardiner praise from the community, and in 2021 she was named Toowoomba Citizen of the Year.

“We have a great team … and it was the best seven years of my life,” she said.

The reduced pace in the new role will give Ms Gardiner more time to spend with her husband and three children and move forward with her doctorate looking into mental health services.

“I want it to be a study that will be meaningful and used to help people,” she said.