One of the heads of the Ballarat Base Hospital rebuild has left Grampians Health as the next stage of construction on Ballarat's biggest building project gets underway.
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Melanie Robertson last month finished her position as chief redevelopment and infrastructure officer to take on a new role as chief executive of the Forest Stewardship Council Australia-New Zealand.
Grampians Health chief executive Dale Fraser thanked Ms Robertson for her contribution to Grampians Health and in particular the Ballarat Base Hospital redevelopment project.
"Her enthusiasm and energy on a range of projects across the campuses has set the scene for Grampians Health to develop its infrastructure program into the future," Mr Fraser said.
Ms Robertson said she felt the time was right to seek a better work-life balance with most of the significant early stages of planning work on the hospital redevelopment complete.
Juggling four children, working full-time and working in the challenging healthcare environment over the past few years has taken its toll.
"People are pretty tired and exhausted and the demands of the role just kept increasing ... so maybe it's not right for me any more," she said.
"I was really happy with where the redevelopment was having gone out to tender for the first building ... so I probably felt it was at the stage where a lot was done and it was time to get up and build it which would require another set of energy that I didn't have," she said.
Enabling works for the first big build of the project, the Central Energy Plant building on Drummond Street, are underway with construction to begin within months. The CEP building will contain a new hospital pharmacy, pathology services, education and learning centre, energy plant, engineering spaces and support services in a large glass cube-like building that will change the streetscape.
Construction of the hospital tower is expected to begin in 2024, and be completed in 2027 when the redevelopment project is finished.
Having always had a strong interest around climate change and sustainability, Ms Robertson's passion for the sector was reignited when researching sustainability and renewable energy options for the hospital redevelopment.
IN OTHER NEWS
While many people have not heard of the Forest Stewardship Council, which Ms Robertson now leads in Australia, the organisation's logo is seen on many paper goods and packaging including office paper, tissue boxes, toilet rolls and on many timber products.
The organisation looks after the sustainable management of forests, certifying that forests are managed in accordance with standards that cover environmental and social factors.
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