Message from the board chair Professor Mary Chiarella AM
I have been truly touched with the warm welcome I have received from so many people as I step into the role of Acting Chair of the Northern Sydney Local Health District Board. It is a great honour to serve as the Board Chair for NSHD, an organisation to which I am deeply committed and of which I’m incredibly proud. As some of you will be aware, my family has received wonderful care from NSLHD over many years and it is my privilege to be able to give back. I chaired my first meeting on my first day, Tuesday, following the retirement of the wonderful Trevor Danos AM, from the role. I know I have huge shoes to fill, but I am looking forward to contributing to the great work and leadership that the Board has already achieved. For those of you whom I haven’t met yet, healthcare is close to my heart, having been a nurse for more than 40 years, starting my career in the United Kingdom, but moving to Australia in the 1970s. I also hold qualifications in midwifery and nurse education and an Honours degree and a PhD in law. I am Professor Emerita at the Susan Wakil School of Nursing at Sydney University and am currently working on nursing regulation projects with the WHO in the Western Pacific and with the International Council of Nursing. I was therefore delighted to see that we recently had one of our largest intakes of graduate nurses at our local health district. Over the past three weeks the nursing and midwifery workforce team has conducted the 2027 GradStart interviews.
This year’s campaign also attracted a large number of aspiring new graduate applicants whom I am told were of a high calibre. We look forward to welcoming them next year. A powerful and emotionally moving Truth Telling event was held on Friday at the district, with survivors, Elders and descendants from the Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation sharing their stories. I was in awe of the courage shown by the survivors who recalled the horrors they endured being kidnapped from their parents and taken to a boys’ home. We have so much to learn from the Stolen Generation and still so much work to heal the wounds and to prevent inter- generational trauma. I want to thank the NSLHD Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Service for inviting the survivors and Elders to come and share such personal stories with us. The Board is committed to working together with our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues to make our services as culturally safe as possible and to ensure equity and access to health care. Please don’t hesitate to introduce yourself to me and tell me about your work if you see me around the facilities. I am always delighted to meet you.
Warm regards,
Professor Mary Chiarella AM Board Chair Northern Sydney Local Health District
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NSLHDNEWS | ISSUE16 | 28 AUGUST 2026
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