Tricia Bulic began work as Manning Hospital’s new general manager yesterday and is enthusiastic and positive about the future.

She takes over from Roz Everingham who has held the position for the past 15 months and now returns to her role as deputy service manager of medicine at John Hunter Hospital.

It has been a quick transition for Tricia, who was appointed the hospital’s director of nursing only five months ago.

Her background includes nearly 30 years experience in the Victorian public health system, and time as CEO in the private health system in Sydney.

Last year she and her husband relocated to Port Macquarie and in late 2011, the director of nursing position came up. She started in February.

Tricia believes her time as director of nursing has put her in a good position.

“I’ve had the best orientation for this job. I’ve been on the ground getting to know the place.”

As director of nursing she has worked closely with the staff and the executive, and developed a good understanding of how the hospital operates.

She looks forward to understanding the challenges of rural and regional hospitals in NSW and trying to assist the community in managing their expectations of the health care service in the changing environment on state and federal levels.

Tricia wants to ensure the community understands the expectations on the hospital and what challenges they’re facing.

“We have to be quite visible, responsive and be proactive to issues that come up, and be open where there are concerns and things aren’t clear”.

The community is free to contact her with concerns.

“Regional and rural hospitals are very much about the community and from my experience this hospital is very close to the community and we need to respect that.”

Tricia said she is personally looking forward to learning more about what happens at Manning Hospital.

On a professional level she sees a great chance to develop the health service model in a way that other services will look at them and want to be like them.

She sees her role as reacting and responding to changes, being proactive, engaged with the government and health service (Hunter New England Health) and taking opportunities that come up, but not lose the heart and soul of the hospital here.

One of Roz’s final official duties before stepping down was a visit by the hospital board last week, where she took members on a “whistle stop” tour through the facility.

“The feedback on the culture here was that this place is wonderful,” said Roz.

While the tour was quick, she said they really got a sense of what the culture of the hospital was like.

“(They mentioned) the friendliness and openness of the staff and saw they want to be here, are proud of what they do and work hard for the community.”

The board also had the chance to meet with the local health advisory committee from the Manning and Forster, and lunch with a clinicians group.

Roz said she is sad to be leaving.

“You have no idea how much I’ll miss it”.

However, after commuting from Newcastle each week for 15 months she felt it was time to return home and spend more time with her family.

A dinner and morning tea were held last week to farewell Roz and wish her well.

“This town should be very proud of what we’ve got here (at Manning Hospital)... what we’re provided with, what goes in and the heart and soul that goes into providing the health service,” said Roz.

Tim Mooney stepped down as the hospital general manager position in March last year and took long service leave until he officially retired in February.