BUSHkids 2016-17 Annual Report

VALÉ

Godspeed, Glenda, and thank-you so much …

In the pantheon of heroes, two names – other than that of founder Sir Leslie Orme Wilson – will forever be indelibly etched in the history of the Royal Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme. One is Jim Arkell mbe, a founding member and chairman from 1947 to 1973, who shaped its development over a quarter-century of expansion and consolidation. The other is Mrs Glenda Keeshan, whose management and leadership from 1978 to 2006 steered it through the dramatic evolution and self-reinvention needed to ensure the organisation’s survival into the 21st Century. When Glenda was appointed as State Secretary (as the title was then), few women held leading roles in the business life of Queensland – let alone in a non- profit organisation spanning the farthest reaches of the State. She oversaw a string of semi-independent coastal Homes and a vast, intricate network of volunteers going about their work of safely moving hundreds of children each year, to and from their Outback communities for medical treatment. It was not a role for the faint-hearted, but Glenda was never daunted by the enormity of its scope. “You just had to keep focused on the children,” she would say 10 years later, in interviews for the history book BUSHIES. A highly-disciplined professional and an intensely private person, Glenda rarely allowed her colleagues and staff a glimpse of the warmth of her emotions and passion for always placing what was best for the children foremost in the framework of strategic decisions. Not long after Glenda took the reins, the first inklings of change in the healthcare needs of Outback kids began to be detected. Together with an inner circle of clinical professionals – including psychologist Peter Brown and Patricia Williams (later Carlin) – Glenda commissioned extensive research within the organisation to begin preparing it for the future. It would be a journey of great vision, enormous courage and terrible pain. The dawning realisation that the old model of care was no longer relevant – indeed, would soon no longer be workable – required nothing less than a total reinvention of the Bush Children’s Health Scheme. It would have to turn its face away from the coast, towards the communities of regional Queensland and re-establish itself there. The difficult task of unpicking the bricks and mortar of Sir Leslie’s vision while staying true to its principles, reassigning and reconstructing resources to the Bush, fell to Glenda and a handful of individuals to administer and execute. By the time the last of the coastal Homes were closed – at Scarborough in 1999, where everything began in 1935, and at Clontarf, where that era ended in 2005 – the organisation had completed a most remarkable transformation, one five years in the planning and a full 10 years in its (sometimes bloody) execution. That brave gambit had undoubtedly saved its future, although it had come at a heavy price: of the many affected by the hard decisions which needed to be made, none wanted to be in Glenda’s shoes in making them. Few could see beyond the local consequences of those decisions; Glenda could see the ramifications of not making them. Throughout history, individuals are sometimes called to meet challenges; other times, they find themselves already in place as challenges arise.

Glenda’s time at “Bush Children’s” began with the former and ended, almost three decades later, having surmounted the latter. Vision the organisation had aplenty in its first 70 years, but perhaps never together with so much courage, fortitude and determination as embodied by Glenda Keeshan, steeled through those darkest times, greatest upheavals and most vital chapters of its history. The extracts below, taken from Chapter 10 of BUSHIES – the organisation’s history book published in 2016 and to which Glenda graciously contributed her first-hand memories – endeavour to summarise the magnitude of her legacy. The text opens with her closing remarks in the final Annual Report (2005-06) of her tenure: “Lastly, my thanks go to the children and families who use the Centres – we hope you have enjoyed your time with us and that together we have acquired new skills, learned new concepts and grown in experience and understanding of ourselves and our world.” And with that, BUSHIES’ Executive Officer Mrs Glenda Keeshan signed-off after almost 29 years. Her time in the role had spanned six State Premiers, five Governors, three Chairmen, four Deputy Chairmen and three Honorary Treasurers; she had exceeded even the length of the legendary Jim Arkell’s chairmanship by almost two years. When she took the job of State Secretary, Brisbane’s Commonwealth Games were still four years in the future; when she left, Sydney’s Olympic Games were more than six years in the past. When she first arrived from Ilfracombe, the Scheme’s four coastal Homes and intricate statewide transport arrangements were operating just as they had for more than three decades. When she left, a full spectrum of Allied Health services was being provided through an entirely new network of six smaller Centres across regional Queensland. By any measure, it had been a truly remarkable, and unique, stewardship. On behalf of thousands and thousands of Queenslanders who never knew you, but whose lives benefited immeasurably by the hard work you did for so long, and the largely unseen love which drove you through it all, thank you, Glenda, and God bless.

Above: After 10 years at the helm, Glenda Keeshan is pictured here with Chairman Reg Bartels at the ‘New Directions’ conference in 1988, at which the revolutionary reinvention of the organisation was initially determined.

Below right: At the official reception at Government House, hosted by His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey ac – Patron of BUSHkids as the incumbent Governor of Queensland – to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the organisation in 2015, Glenda was an honoured guest.

Background: On 12 October 2017, following a remembrance gathering at BUSHkids’ Toowong premises, Glenda’s husband Len, together with Chairman Dr Neil Bartels, planted a selection of rose bushes – Glenda’s favourite flower – in the grounds of the property, and a memorial plaque was affixed to the wall of the building.

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