Today’s sunny spring day welcomed the 50-strong crowd who gathered at Hopetoun for the Grand Opening of our Hopetoun Duplexes.
Welcoming everyone, CEO Jenni Masters said the build had been “quite the journey”; one which started following the diversion of Hopetoun Urgent Care due to severe staff shortages.
“While it certainly wasn’t an easy decision to make, it was a necessary one due to the severe, and unfortunate, staffing shortages,” Ms Masters said.
“It was clear to us that to remove the diversion we needed to find not only appropriately skilled staff but, importantly, staff who would be part of RNH and the community,” she said.
“We realised that to do this would take a four-pronged approach:
- Retain our valuable current staff;
- Grow our own. Last year we reinstated the EN Preceptorship program with 3 local community now on their way to becoming ENs. Each year we will continue;
- Look at appropriately trained and experienced community members who might be working elsewhere. An example has been our Hopetoun Campus Manager Angela Naylor;
- Bring in staff from outside the area. This required housing, especially if we wanted these staff to stay, with many bringing families.
With this in mind we began what has turned out to be a highly successful, values-based recruitment campaign with our partner Latitude Recruitment”.
Ms Masters said that it was also abundantly clear that to attract staff to work and stay in our region RNH must address, like many organisations in rural and remote Victoria, the housing shortage without occupying any and all rental housing in the town.
Former RNH Executive Manager Environmental Services David Siddall and RNH Project Support Officer Bernie O’Connor took on this challenge and, following months of discussions and planning, RNH applied for, and in October 2024 was subsequently granted funding under the Regional Development Victoria Regional Worker Accommodation Fund to build accommodation in Hopetoun, supplemented with an RNH contribution and with a firm goal in mind – attracting and retaining more skilled staff to Hopetoun.
From there, things moved very quickly and, over the course of 12 months RNH went from planning the duplexes to engaging the wonderful Swanbuild team, to selecting colours and fittings, to advertising Hopetoun as an ideal tree change destination.
“It is hard to believe that it was in December 2024 that we visited the Swanbuild site in Swan Hill and saw the first glimpse of the floor structure being welded together. That is only 10 months ago,” Ms Masters said.
“The delivery of the modules onsite in June this year was a significant milestone, and the ongoing development of the houses has been wonderful distraction for our Hopetoun residents with many a cup of tea and biscuits consumed as they watched the progress from the window,” she said.
In fact, the project was not only popular amongst our residents, but also the wider community. This was demonstrated when Regional Development Victoria posted a video detailing both our project, as the first project completed under the funding, and the benefits of building modular homes, which attracted almost 2,000 views within 24 hours showcasing just how strongly regional communities support their health services!
Ms Masters’ comments were echoed by both Regional Development Victoria Regional Director Sarah Henderson and Yarriambiack Shire Mayor Kylie Zanker, who each touched on how valuable projects like the duplexes are to rural and regional communities.
RNH Consumer Advisory Committee member Grant Doxey shared how RNH is valuable to not only the districts in which its campuses are based, but the surrounding towns also, before handing the floor to Hopetoun icon and long serving former Matron Una Splatt who was invited to cut the commemorative cake and ribbon, signifying the duplexes as open. Una was accompanied by RNH Board Members Jan Fisher and Michael Koss, respectively.
“They say it takes a village to bring up a child and it has certainly taken many dedicated people to bring this project to fruition, on time and of such great quality,” Ms Masters said.
“Thank you to everyone involved, without whom this project would not have seen the light of day,” she said, before inviting all to tour one of the duplexes.