A "total breakdown in communications" between Biripi Aboriginal Corporation Medical Centre Board and management, the dismissal of two chief executive officers "in close succession", and finally 16 senior staff submitted WorkCover claims for stress related injuries.
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It was a management mess years in the making and in October 2018 one man was given the job to fix it in six months. That was brief of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations (RIC) to special administrator Peter McQuoid of PDM Consultancy.
The Biripi ACMC management crisis saw "operations and vital services deteriorate to unacceptable levels", according to RIC, resulting in the NSW Office of the Children's Guardian acting to not renew the corporation's accreditation as an out-of-home care provider for children and young people. It was an essential service in the Manning Valley and according RIC, it was "vital that Biripi's problems be addressed to ensure they can provide the best possible standards of care and service to Aboriginal children, for the carers and families, as well as for the clients of the medical service."
Five months down the track Mr McQuoid is preparing to hand Biripi ACMC back to the control of members, and he says the journey to restoring it back to efficiency involved "a total restructure of the organisation."
He describes himself as "a forward thinker", and would not be drawn on the scope of issues contributing to the Biripi ACMC crisis.
"Special administrators look forward and we don't explore the past."
We accept the fact that they have got themselves into a bad position and our entire focus is on the patients, the children, and the clients, and what we have to put in place to ensure that service delivery is appropriate.
- Special administrator Peter McQuoid
In discussing the restructure, Mr McQuoid said "one of the problems the organisation had was that one manager had just over 30 people reporting to her. It's impossible to manage 30 reports, when standard best-practice indicates that six to eight is the ideal number of people to be reporting to a manager.
"The restructure has just been rolled out and now we have a situation where no manager has more than seven people reporting to them.
"You can't mentor, coach, appraise more than about eight people if you are going to be doing it properly."
A team of people worked with Mr McQuoid to assist the process of supporting the 16 staff on WorkCover to return to work, during the process of reviewing the corporation as a whole, service delivery and structure in consultation with funding bodies.
One of the biggest changes is that we have turned Biripi ACMC into a skills-based board, and it wasn't a skills-based board before.
- Special administrator Peter McQuoid
"That makes a significant difference because we are talking about asking a group of people to set the strategic direction of a multi-million dollar, multi-disciplined organisation and it's incredibly complicated, so you need people with the appropriate skills to drive it."
Mr McQuoid revealed that in addition to the Biripi ACMC board, which is yet to be announced, two specialist directors will be appointed.
Dr David Norling, a former director of pre-vocational education and training at Manning Hospital and a specialist in Aboriginal health, and Mr Craig Tapper, an associate professor and fellow of the Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of NSW.
"To have a professor who is prepared to put his hand up and donate his time, and travel from Sydney on a monthly basis to attend Biripi board meetings to provide it with specialist advice and counselling going forward is wonderful."
On April 24 Mr McQuiod will hand over Biripi ACMC to its new chief executive officer, Robert Skeen.
"Robert brings exactly the strengths that Biripi needs at this critical time," Mr McQuoid said.
"He will come to Biripi ACMC from his recent position as CEO of Katungul Aboriginal Corporation Regional Health and Community Services. Prior to that he was general manager of Yerin Aboriginal Health Service, CEO of Nhulundu Wooribah Indigenous Health Organisation, acting manager of Anyinginyi Health and deputy CEO of Yerin.
Mr Skeen says he is "honoured to be appointed."
"The future is bright and I look forward to working with all of the staff as we will grow to be the service of choice for Koori people in the region."
Mr McQuoid says it is now time to focus on the future of the Biripi ACMC.
"From my perspective, this is now a good news story. They (Biripi ACMC) got themselves into a bit of bother, which happens with everyone occasionally in life, but we are really pleased with how all of the staff have come together.
"It's not me that turns it around, it's all the staff and managers. They have done a fantastic job and it's quite exciting. I'm hoping that Biripi in the next two or three years will be up there with the best performing medical services in the State."
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