The Quiet Backbone of Australian Healthcare – Care Without Applause

There is something unbalanced in the way parts of the media continue to engage with the Catholic Church. Past shortcomings, some serious and rightly examined, are revisited frequently and with intensity, while the extraordinary daily work of the Catholic health sector attracts comparatively little attention. Criticism travels easily and loudly, but competence and compassion tend to move quietly in the background.

This imbalance is particularly evident in maternity care, which happens to be my own specialty. At a time when many private providers are steadily retreating from pregnancy, childbirth, and paediatrics in favour of more predictable and lucrative medical or surgical activity, St Vincent’s Health Australia has chosen a different path. Rather than stepping away, it has doubled down. Investment in new birth suites, expanded postnatal facilities, and strengthened models of continuity of care represents more than infrastructure spending. It reflects a deliberate commitment to women and babies at a moment when such commitment has become increasingly uncommon.

This approach is not isolated. When a major health provider entered administration and maternity services at Gold Coast Private were suddenly under threat, Mater Health moved quickly to assume responsibility and ensure continuity of care. There was no fanfare and no demand for public recognition. The priority was simply that women and families were not left uncertain or unsupported during a period of corporate instability that was entirely beyond their control.

More recently, amid significant upheaval in the private hospital sector, Catholic healthcare provider Calvary has stepped in to acquire both Hobart Private Hospital in Tasmania and Holmesglen Private Hospital in outer Melbourne. These were not opportunistic purchases of easy assets. They were complex, high responsibility acquisitions made in a climate of uncertainty, workforce anxiety, and service risk. Once again, the motivation was not spectacle or short term return, but continuity of care and stewardship of essential health services at a time when others were retreating.

What I have consistently observed across Catholic hospitals is a strong can-do culture that values action over optics. There is an instinct to roll up sleeves and get on with the work, even when bureaucracy is heavy and the financial impost is real. The guiding question is rarely whether something is profitable or popular, but whether it is needed and whether the organisation has a responsibility to respond.

This ethos is evident in Mercy Health, which continues to provide maternity, aged care, and mental health services in environments where alternatives are limited and pressures are high. It is also evident in St John of God Health Care, now one of the largest providers of mental health care in the country, investing deeply in a sector that is complex, underfunded, and emotionally demanding. These are not areas of medicine associated with glamour or easy margins, yet they are precisely where Catholic health consistently chooses to show up. The uncomfortable reality is that without the contribution of Catholic Health Australia and its member organisations, the Australian healthcare system would struggle to function and, in many areas, would quite simply fall over.

That same instinct was visible in stark form on Sunday afternoon, 14 December 2025, when an ordinarily quiet time of the week and year at Bondi was shattered by a shooting and a sudden surge in clinical need. St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney responded as it has for generations. Care was provided without hesitation, without discrimination, and without questions that did not matter in the moment. Systems flexed, staff stepped forward, and patients were treated because they needed treatment. No one paused to consider reputational risk or financial consequence. The work simply had to be done.

Beyond moments of crisis, Catholic hospitals have also demonstrated an ability to practise modern, evidence based medicine within clear ethical frameworks. Increased use of intrauterine devices to manage heavy menstrual bleeding and the thoughtful adoption of risk reducing salpingectomy to lower ovarian cancer risk are examples of contemporary care delivered with careful counselling and respect for patient autonomy. These practices show that strong values and good medicine are not opposing forces, but can coexist in a way that strengthens both.

Perhaps this work goes largely unrecognised because it lacks spectacle. It does not lend itself easily to outrage cycles or simplistic sensationalist narratives. Quiet competence does not trend, and steady benevolence does not provoke clicks. It is easier, and often more commercially rewarding, to criticise institutions than to acknowledge those that consistently undertake complex, unglamorous work with integrity. As a public, we are often more interested in a fall from grace than in sustained decency, more inclined to cast a stone than to applaud kindness. Large organisations, particularly those with a long history, make convenient targets in a media environment that frequently values impact over balance and accusation over context.

I write this as a Hindu, married to a staunch feminist, with a feminist sister, both specialist doctors, and three headstrong daughters growing up in the twenty-first century. None of us are naïve about history or power, and all of us care deeply about women’s autonomy, safety, and dignity. It is precisely because of those commitments that I value institutions that demonstrate, through sustained action rather than rhetoric, what compassionate and principled healthcare looks like in practice.

The people who live, work in, and are cared for by Catholic health institutions should be proud. These hospitals are not engaged in a popularity contest and they are not chasing applause. They continue to do the work that needs doing, often quietly and often under pressure, guided by a sense of responsibility that extends beyond balance sheets or headlines. In the current healthcare landscape, that willingness to step forward, absorb complexity, and care without condition is not just admirable. It is essential.

Associate Professor Vinay S. Rane is an obstetrician, gynaecologist and lawyer based in Melbourne. He is a founding director of Melbourne Mothers and holds leadership roles on the Councils of the Australian Medical Association (Vic) and the National Association of Specialist Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.