Pay for volunteer directors at smaller public hospitals is a good start, but the future may see a need for higher pay, according to the chair of Castlemaine Health.
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Under state government reforms, rural hospital board directors will typically receive around $3000 annually.
Castlemaine, Healthcote, Maldon, Maryborough and Inglewood hospital boards are among those in line for remuneration.
Directors there will not earn as much as at larger regional services like Bendigo Health, where they are eligible for $16,881 annually, while the chairperson can get at least $42,158.
Directors at Alfred Health, Melbourne Health and Monash Health, will soon be paid just over $40,000 annually.
Castlemaine Health chair Sharon Fraser said she had joined the board to volunteer and give back to the community.
However, the industry was changing, which was in large part triggered by the 2016 Targeting Zero review of the health system following 11 potentially avoidable stillborn and newborn deaths at a hospital in Bacchus Marsh.
Directors were taking on greater oversight of management decisions, as well as more of the responsibilities that the Department of health and Human Services once had.
“It is the way a lot of organisations are moving nowadays. Health is a very risk-averse industry, as it should be. You don’t want to put people’s health at risk. Some of that (change taking place) is about giving more responsibility to the local hospital board,” Ms Fraser said.
“The good thing is that you don’t just get the risk, you get the authority to do something about it.
“To have that done locally, rather than by a government department, is not a bad thing.”
Ms Fraser did not think rural hospital directors should be paid as much as in larger areas, but hoped discussions on remuneration could continue.
“We’ve only stepped into this. We really need to see what that looks like, to hold that principle of equity and see what that looks like in the longer term,” she said.