by Yvette Brand
With a new hospital in the planning and a strategic plan to complete, West Gippsland Healthcare Group’s interim chief executive officer Shannon Wight is not just keeping the seat warm during her six month tenure.
On secondment from Eastern Health until the end of July, Ms Wight brings with her a passion for strong community connections in public health.

In a career spanning more than 25 years, Ms Wight has spent many years in clinical and management roles and a variety of roles within acute healthcare settings at both Alfred and Monash Health. Her current position is executive director of clinical operations at Eastern Health.
Growing up in Traralgon, and with ongoing family ties in Gippsland, the secondment to WGHG was an opportunity to reconnect to rural health.
Ms Wight studied nursing at Geelong and her first years working were in regional New South Wales where she developed a passion for regional health services and their community connections.
“I am invested in the quality of rural health because my family still live in Traralgon,” she said.
Ms Wight also is a board member of Maryvale Private Hospital.
Throughout her career, Ms Wight moved into management and leadership roles including director of nursing and director of operations and in the past six years has taken on executive roles at Eastern Health.
She said it was a privilege to lead and partner with clinicians to ensure high quality care could be delivered safely.
While relishing in her leadership roles, Ms Wight also has always welcomed the opportunity to be reminded of her medical roots, and during COVID, under direction of the state’s chief health officer, joined many others in the profession to pull on the scrubs again.
“I am very proud and privileged to be a part of the nursing profession. It’s incredible how small our profession is and the kinship and respect there,” she said.
Proudly leading a largely female executive team, Ms Wight is looking forward to working closely with board chair Jo-Anne Moorfoot and the board on some “very important and serious business.”
“I will not be just keeping the seat warm,” she said. “My clear responsibility and priorities are to provide stable leadership and add value.”
Budget setting and ongoing planning for the new hospital will be central to Ms Wight’s works over the next few months, but she also will be heavily involved in establishing a direction for the new Gippsland Local Health Service Network.
As well, a new strategic plan needs to be developed, requiring a lot of critical thinking and work with the executive team and board to ensure the future direction of the healthcare group and new hospital is set.
She said the strategic plan would look at future clinical services to meet population growth particularly in paediatrics, women’s health, cancer and surgical.
Ms Wight said the new hospital remained at the forefront of the board but with a number of health services in the mix waiting for funding, they would eagerly await news in the May state budget.
Planning for the new Gippsland LHSN began last month with Ms Wight involved in a workshop with chief executive officers from Latrobe, South Gippsland, Bairnsdale, Central Gippsland, Omeo, Orbost and Yarram health services.
She said there was a lot of energy in the room and it was just the beginning of what she believed would be a “pretty awesome” health alliance.
Ms Wight said building relationships and trust in the new health service network would be a priority.
She said there were already clear relationships with some services such as Gippsland cancer services - “that is just one example of the care that we can work together on.”
“I made it really clear we are a part of the team,” she said.