WHY IT’S RAINING BABIES
THE INTERVIEW WITH ANN
ALMOST every day, Trish Hogan sneaks down to the maternity ward at Pindara Private Hospital.
As CEO, it’s her job to keep an eye on all aspects of the business. But as a mother, it’s her guilty pleasure to cuddle those newborn babies.
And lately she literally has her hands full. Because both business and baby numbers are booming.
In fact, the birthing unit is heavily booked for the rest of the year, while Gold Coast University Hospital also reports yet another recordbreaker, with 5165 babies born in the 2017/18 financial year.
Trish says she’s perfectly positioned for this baby boom, both as the boss of the hospital and as one of the city’s leading executives.
“I think we’re on the cusp of a Gold Coast renaissance,” says the former nurse, who sits on a number of boards across the city, including the Titans NRL team.
“These baby numbers are proof that families feel confident in our future.
“It’s not just people coming here to start a new life but people who have put their roots down in our city.
“The Gold Coast is the best place to be born, to be educated, to live, to work, to raise your family and retire. We’re not a city of transients anymore. We’re a city for life – and a city for the future.
“And the best bonus of all is that I get to cuddle all of our new arrivals.”
Trish grew up in southeast Queensland, spending her summers in the Gold Coast’s caravan parks from Main Beach to Tallebudgera with her grandparents.
While she spent much of her career working in the southern states, she looks the picture of a GC resident – blonde hair, bright eyes and colourful clothes.
She’s nothing less than professional but has the added injection of personality that makes our city pop.
In fact, under her watch the hospital went viral – in a good way – after releasing a hilarious Christmas dance video featuring doctors and execs busting moves in operating theatres.
Sitting down with her, it’s obvious that her starring role was an extension of her energetic personality. She is a people person, to the point that it takes a few minutes before I can ask her a question; she’s far more interested in where I came from and where I got my shoes.
She’s also an overachiever. While she began her career as a trainee nurse, she later earned a teaching degree and a Masters in Health Administration, living and working in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.
Hoping for a “sea change” to a job that would allow her to see more of her daughters, Trish moved the family from Adelaide to be general manager at the Tweed General Hospital in 2000.
While the job started off small, like she wanted it, her role expanded quickly and she was soon responsible for all public hospitals from the NSW border to Bangalow.
She stayed eight years before taking the job at Pindara, where she is now in her tenth year.
Trish has lived in Southport throughout the almost two decades she has been here, sending her daughters to St Hilda’s – and developing a distinct distaste for Queensland’s refusal to adopt daylight savings time.
“It’s ridiculous. The travel from Southport to NSW never bothered me, but the time change just did my head in.”
While Trish insists she will never enter politics, that doesn’t mean she is short of political opinions.
Along with engaging in the DST debate, she’s frustrated with the Gold Coast’s lack of beachfront dining options.
And don’t even get her started on Brisbane …
“I just can’t believe we don’t have even one state department here. We are a huge city and we deserve some governmental attention.
“Living in Brisbane’s shadow is both our blessing and our curse. Yes, we get constantly overlooked and underfunded. But it’s all made us a city that has pulled itself up by its bootstraps. We built all this by ourselves.
“That doesn’t mean we’ve done it all perfectly, of course.
“The thing that I just don’t understand is that with all of this amazing coastline, why do we only have one restaurant on the beach?
“Commercial restaurants on the beachfront just seem like a no-brainer to me.
“They should have made (diplomatic and business hub for the 2018 Games) Commonwealth House in Broadbeach a permanent dining fixture. It was magic.
“It’s a far more equitable way to share and maximise our natural assets.”
However, Trish says there is plenty the city is doing right.
From transportation to culture to sport, she says other cities are looking to our lead.
“I think when we built the light rail, that’s when we officially became a city – it just made us,” she says. “I’m all for fixing the M1 as well but I think our priority should also be connecting Gold Coast Airport to the light rail.
“The other thing we are just nailing is cultural events.
“Every weekend there is some amazing concert or show that we are hosting. From the free events in Broadbeach to the line-up that HOTA is building to our signature events like Swell and Bleach*.
“Our restaurants are just incredible, too. Hellenika was just named as the best Greek restaurant in Australia by The New York Times.
“Our sports teams, while maybe not winning the awards – or even all of the games – are growing and are in such a stable position.”
As head of the all-female executive team behind Pindara, as well as one of three women on the Titans board, Trish says the city has a strong crew of female leaders.
She says these women are not token figureheads but in their positions because they are the best people for the job.
“I’ve been a judge for the Gold Coast Business Woman of the Year award since its inception and I am constantly blown away by the depth of talent we have here,” she says.
Trish well knows the importance of teamwork. As well as the juggle she and her husband shared while raising their daughters, now 24 and 29, she says there is a real team mentality between the Coast’s public and private hospitals.
“All of the hospitals work together to look after our city and our growing population, there is no ‘us versus them’ mentality,” she says.
“Our business is booming – and that’s because the Gold Coast is too.”
It’s music to any mother’s ears. The brighter the future in our fair city, the better the chance our babies will choose to stay close to home.
These baby numbers are proof that families feel confident in our future