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Sister Clare Nolan RSC is this year’s recipient of the Sister Maria Cunningham Lifetime Contribution Award.
The award was presented by CHA Chair John Watkins AM at a gala dinner in Brisbane on Tuesday night before 280 delegates gathered for Catholic Health Australia’s national conference.
The Sr Maria Cunningham Lifetime Contribution Award is bestowed by the CHA Stewardship Board on Catholic health leaders who have made significant contributions to the Church’s presence in health and aged care, and inspired others working in Catholic health and aged care ministries. Recipients have led Catholic ministries but have also made impacts on the broader community.
Catholic Health Australia chief executive Pat Garcia said the healing ministry of Jesus that captured Sr Nolan’s heart in her early nursing years had never left her.
“It is difficult for those in our sector not to gush about Sr Clare. She embodies the important mission of our ministry of healing. She accompanies the sick, restores them to service and consistently looks to puts the most vulnerable at the centre of our care,” Mr Garcia said.
“Her accomplishments in the field of Catholic health are considerable.
“She has inspired countless men and women to see the work of Christian healthcare through its rightful vocational call, with mission as the focus.”
Up until March 2021 Sister Clare had held the position of Congregational Leader of the Sisters of Charity for six years.
In that role she was also the member of Mary Aikenhead Ministries, who are the stewards of St Vincent’s Health Australia – Australia’s largest not-for-profit health and aged care provider and the thirteenth-largest privately held Company in Australia.
Sr Clare did her Nurse training at the Mater Hospital Brisbane. Following this she entered the Novitiate of the Sisters of Charity of Australia in Sydney. Following her Formation as a Sister of Charity she was missioned to the healing ministry of Christ at St. Vincent’s Darlinghurst in Sydney and has remained in the healing ministry all of her religious life in a variety of places. Nursing and Health Administration played a large part of her ministry and led to eighteen years in Congregational Leadership concluding in March 2022.
She joined the CHA Board last year.
