A lot has changed at Gateway Health during the time that Leonard Peady was its Chief Executive Officer.
Mr Peady was CEO from 2007 until he retired in 2017, three years after the merger between Ovens and King Community Health and Gateway Community Health.
“Gateway Community Health had a much smaller operating budget and it primarily provided services in Wodonga,” Mr Leonard said reflecting on his time as CEO.
“Due to government funding, we were also limited to what services we could provide and which communities we could deliver care in. It was a much smaller organisation than it is now.”
Back in 2007, Gateway Community Health worked closely with Ovens and King Community Health to deliver services to clients in this region. However, the two organisations were also competing for government funding.
“Ann Wearne, the CEO of Ovens and Kings Community Health, and I had a good working relationship, so we spoke and met regularly.
“We knew that from a financial perspective it would make more sense to operate as one community health organisation rather than two.
“Ultimately, it was this merger that increased the budget and provided an opportunity to deliver better care for our clients and to expand services to other communities,” Mr Peady said.
When Mr Peady first joined Gateway Community Health as CEO, there were about 60 staff. Following the merger, there were more than 300 and the total operating budget had almost doubled.
“One of the biggest achievements during my tenure, was securing the funding to build the GP Super Clinic that allowed us to start a bulk-billing GP clinic,” Mr Peady said.
At the time, many Gateway Community Health clients had a hard time accessing GPs as they had multiple health concerns and weren’t always reliable – meaning they didn’t always show up to an appointment.
This concern caused a health care gap for these individuals as other clinics weren’t keen to provide care to these types of patients.
“We knew it was important for these clients to have a place to get good and consistent primary care, so we provided that through our GP clinic,” Mr Peady said.
Reflecting on his time as CEO, Mr Peady said it was a privilege to lead Gateway Health during and through such a big change and he’s proud of what he and the team achieved.
This July marks the 10th anniversary of the merger of Gateway Community Health in Wodonga and Ovens & King Community Health Service in Wangaratta.
Today, Gateway Health is a charitable, not-for-profit community health organisation providing affordable healthcare, support services, community programs, and outreach initiatives across North East Victoria and parts of southern NSW.
The needs of rural and regional people and communities are our priority when delivering quality care across sites in Wodonga, Wangaratta, Myrtleford, Benalla and Shepparton.
