For the past three weeks, Goulburn Valley Health has been in emergency management mode and chief executive Matt Sharp has been the calm face and the measured voice of the response.
The plan of attack was already carefully laid in case COVID-19 returned to the Goulburn Valley, so when thousands of households were sent into quarantine within hours of the news a Shepparton man in his 30s tested positive on August 20, all Mr Sharp had to do was give the green light.
Overnight, GV Health’s testing capacity transformed, with large-scale temporary testing sites assembled to cater for a comparative tidal wave of swabs.
“We've been in an incident management approach, and that's not how we normally run the organisation,” Mr Sharp said.
The GV Health chief said the response to the COVID-19 outbreak was not unlike the management of a bus accident south of Shepparton a couple of months ago.
Yet there is a big difference between shifting gears for a couple of days, and operating in overdrive for more than three weeks - not to mention the fact there were more than 500 GV Health staff in quarantine at the peak of the crisis.
Despite this, when Mr Sharp speaks about his role during the outbreak, he makes it sound like any other day at work - and it’s likely this calm efficiency that makes him good at his job.
“Ultimately, in terms of what my role is, it's very similar to what it is normally,” he said.
“And that's making sure we've got the right processes and structures and absolutely the right people in those teams - and they're working together as one.
“It’s not only me, there are hundreds of people doing amazing things and terrific work to provide the services to the community, so it really is a team effort.”
Mr Sharp said the strength of Victoria’s regional health networks was a big boost during the crisis.
“Although we might be separated by geography, we are quite well connected as a group of health services as well as within respective executive leadership roles,” he said.
“It is a really strong network in that regard and the collegial support is fantastic.”
If he could give any advice to his counterparts in neighbouring regions, it would be to have faith in the contingency plans in place.
“They’ve probably all to some degree been tested in different ways since the pandemic began,” he said.
“I know that they’re equally well-prepared as we have been in terms of dealing with an outbreak.”
In the 10 years prior to his work at GV Health, Mr Sharp worked at Eastern Health in metropolitan Melbourne, Rochester and Elmore District Health Service and Echuca Regional Health.
Based on his experiences, he agreed with Health Minister Martin Foley’s comment last week that there was “a deeper sense of ownership and engagement in regional communities with their health services”.
“Overwhelmingly, there is a real, noticeable difference in terms of the connection that the community has with its health service, and also the sense of connection and pride that the staff have in working in a place like GV Health or another rural or regional health service,” he said.
That sense of pride is strengthened during emergencies, according to Mr Sharp.
“I think that's great because the community needs to have confidence that when there is a time of need - like what we've had in the last few weeks - that the whole service can cope and is robust enough to withstand the challenges,” he said.
“The connection is strong, and we look forward to growing even stronger in the future.”