We first met Dr Coralie Wales in 2014 when she invited us to join a group of health consumers which became the Consumer Representative Council. The aim was to provide volunteer health consumers to provide a consumer voice to regular health and administration planning committees throughout the 4 hospitals comprising the Western Sydney Local Health District. 

When we left Blacktown early in 2020, the Council had a membership of around 30 people and had become a respected and valuable asset to the health landscape in Western Sydney. This development can be attributed largely to the energy and commitment of Coralie Wales.

Coralie is an excellent and skillful communicator and a practiced organiser of people and facilities. As the Council grew she appointed mentors who could take new members along to meetings as a learning process. Training programs were presented by Coralie herself and by selected health professionals, with trainees strongly encouraged to express their own views. Coralie is a passionate advocate for co-design in the development of better health outcomes.

Personally we can thank her today for increased confidence and knowledge which gives us the ability to talk with our own health advisors, as a team, to solve any problems arising.

As a community leader, a voice for my Cook Islands community, I see Dr Coralie as a voice - a champion - for all people.  Her passion and love for working for and with people makes the work for any company, department or organisation so much easier and less costly.  I am honoured and privileged to know Dr Coralie and to call her a dear friend.  Wishing her all the best in her new endeavours. 

I was born and raised in the Cook Islands arriving in Australia in 1993 for tertiary education at Cumberland College, Faculty of Health Sciences, Sydney University.  After 10 years living in Australia, I was married and had two beautiful sons.  I have a passion in helping people better themselves in life, my whole life I’ve always found myself in some sort of leadership role.  Thus in 2013, I was elected President of the Cook Islands Community Council.  It was the financial hardship of the impact of Permanent Residency & Citizenship status over the years that I prayed to God to direct me to find help for my people.  In December 2018 a meeting was organised for Pacifica Leaders at Property Investors Alliance (PIA) in Sydney Olympic Park.  In 2020, I started my journey in Real Estate and three years later being exactly 10 years of volunteer service in my community, I realised this chapter has come to a close and a new chapter is to begin.  I resigned as President to focus on business and property investments with the purpose of educating myself and as the saying goes ‘each one teach one’ and then my community.

In my role as President I attended many events and meetings to either gain resources or to be a voice for my community.  It was at one of these networks that I met the lovely Dr Coralie Wales.

I found Dr Coralie instantly warm and welcoming, sincerely curious about my small Cook Islands community which I enjoyed sharing with her.  She held a monthly meeting called the ‘Consumer Representatives Council’ for health.  I was very impressed as it was attended by people of diverse culture, medical and non-medical staff, stakeholders, patients, community service providers even City Council Councillors and Hospital Administrators.  The meetings were well organised, with opportunities for Consumer Representatives to visit and assess our hospitals in the West for improvement purposes.  Today I am very proud to have participated in these opportunities.  Dr Coralie was passionate about ensuring that all people from our Koori nation to the newest arrivals to Australia of all ages had the best support and care in our Western Sydney Local Health District.  The presenters that were chosen for the meetings were the best, she too had researched their topic and was able to enhance the presentations.  She was articulate and knew her audience very well thus ensuring that everyone understood and contributed evenly.  I always enjoyed attending the meetings as I was able to voice my views as a Pacific Islander and to learn more about the Health System, it's processes and how best to support my community.

From the Consumer Representative Council, I took a break to focus on my new chapter, but later reconnected with Coralie in her new role with WentWest.  Now this role was definitely a step up from Consumer Representative Council.  I saw this work amazing – I was not being ‘consulted’ rather I am in fact a participant in the decision making of WentWest, I couldn’t believe it, it’s what I’ve always thought should be done. We sit together like my elders did in the village, I was elated.  The value of the works that Dr Coralie did and do are in my view a reflection of the person she is, she valued everyone, made people feel safe and when we feel safe we open up and this leads to possibilities.  As an observer at the two weekend Citizen Juries in 2023 it was beyond what I had ever imagined.  Ordinary people randomly selected to participate in the prioritising of our Health in the West.  It was such an amazing experience, people were contributing, prioritising what was urgent and important in their community.  That was such an invaluable idea and I began promoting it in our Pacifica communities and wherever it is needed

Dr Coralie has a gift that allows her to walk into any community and be welcomed.  She is intellectual and passionate about what she does.  I believe she is extremely hard working but because Coralie loves what she does, I’m certain she exerts minimal effort to produce the sizeable amount of resource and preparation for every participant to have the best experience and value and purpose for the event.

In 2017 when I was about to retire as a Palliative Medicine physician and Director of Supportive & Palliative Care, Western Sydney Local Health District (WSLHD), Dr Coralie Wales contacted me to ask if I was interested in becoming a WSLHD consumer representative. I was unfamiliar with that role but was very interested and organised to meet Coralie to discuss. Thus began yet another phase of my life, volunteering to contribute from a community and consumer perspective to improve health care.

Throughout my 40-year career, initially as a GP and then Palliative Medicine Physician I focussed on patient centred care, what was most  important to patients and their families / carers, listening to them and empowering them to participate in their healthcare decisions. So often patients and their families complain that they are not listened to, do not have enough information, and feel lost in the system. Becoming a consumer representative, involved in developing health care systems, implementing new programs and assessing existing systems, potentially led to the opportunity of allowing the community and consumer voice to be heard.

Coralie has mentored consumer representatives in her role with both the WSLHD Community & Consumer Partnership and since September 2021 the Wentwest Community Partnerships in Health and Social Care. She has led these partnerships, not by telling consumers what to do, but by encouraging consumers to believe in what they bring to the conversation, to not be afraid about speaking out and supporting consumers should they feel that their contribution is not being respected or acted upon.

Over the past 6 years, I have seen a significant improvement in consumer engagement across the Western Sydney Local Health District. Not only has Coralie mentored the consumers, but she has educated health care staff regarding what consumers bring to the conversation and stressed to the executive the importance of listening to and acting on the consumer voice.

Coralie has also mentored consumers interested in health care research projects, encouraging our involvement, respecting our minimal research experience, if any, and providing the research expertise that most consumers lack.

As a result of Coralie’s support and encouragement, I have been involved in research projects that she has led in WSLHD and is currently leading with Wentwest.
I have also been involved with University Technology Sydney (UTS) IMPACCT and Cancer Symptom Trials Consumer Advisory Group.
I have no hesitation in supporting Dr Coralie Wales in her plan to continue advocating for evidence-based community partnerships – including citizen juries - in the primary health landscape.

In my role as Chair of WentWest – the Western Sydney Primary Health Network, and previously as a Western Sydney Local Health District board member, I have been fortunate to work with Coralie on many outstanding initiatives over the years. I was delighted to hear that she is planning a new endeavour advocating for evidence-based community partnerships – including citizen juries, in the primary health landscape. I cannot think of anyone better suited than Coralie to advance much needed work in this critical area.

From personal experience I can confidently say that Coralie is outstanding in terms of her ability to:  

• engage with diverse consumers and communities, build relationships of trust, and empower others to become effective spokespeople and advocates
• utilise multiple channels to communicate effectively with community and  stakeholder groups
• inspire staff members and others to challenge the status quo and be fearless in pursuing shared goals
• establish connections and relationships with those who can influence decisions, and
• underpin all endeavours with a high degree of academic rigour, enabling development of evidence based initiatives, ongoing improvement and demonstration of gains.

Nothing demonstrates Coralie’s skills and commitment more than her championing of WentWest’s Citizen Panels: a complex and challenging process involving the randomised selection of two representative community panels: the first from CALD, and the second from indigenous communities. Panel discussions on critical health system issues were underpinned by the preparation of comprehensive, evidence based materials, expert presentations and skilfully facilitated discussions.  The panels’ subsequent deliberations and recommendations will be central to WentWest’s forward planning processes, and  follow up processes will ensure that panel members know their voices have been heard, and their active involvement will continue.

I can only highly recommend Coralie’s outstanding capabilities and look forward to hearing more about her new initiative. 

Diana O’Halloran AO
Chair, WentWest Ltd  - the Western Sydney PHN
Conjoint Professor, Department of General Practice, University of Western Sydney

I would wholeheartedly support and recommend Coralie to advocate for evidence-based community partnership in the health sphere. Her high moral compass together with her ability to “get things done” and ability to communicate with all levels, ensures a successful outcome for both the organisation and the client.

My name is Kathy van Oeveren, and I have had the pleasure of knowing Coralie for 10 years, in my capacity as NSW Health Department, Health Consumer Representative. Before retiring from the workforce, I was a lecturer at Northern Territory University (Now Charles Darwin University, Northern Territory) in the areas of Commerce and Business Studies. I had also held positions of Senior Human Resource Management for a number of multinational organisations in Sydney.

Being a volunteer all my life, it was only natural that I should seek to do volunteer work on my retirement from the workforce and began volunteering with NSW Health - first at Blacktown Hospital in 2010 then to Westmead Hospital in 2014 where I first met Coralie. Coralie was the Manager for Community and Consumer Engagement for the Western Sydney Local Health District. In this capacity, Coralie was responsible for ensuring that NSW Health compiled with the regulations pertaining to Consumer Partnership for Westmead, Blacktown and Auburn hospitals. Coralie was responsible for many new initiatives including but not limited to the following:

• Establishing information management systems to support and strengthen consumer engagement activity.
• Progress consumer and community involvement on various departmental committees
• Promote partnerships for engagement - including Western Sydney Medicare Local, Consumer organisations and The Aboriginal Medical Services Western Sydney

One of Coralie’s amazing talents is the ability to get to the source of a problem quickly, while ensuring that all parties remain positive and respectful of each other and then gently guide the participants to a possible solution. All the while, the parties feeling that they had come to the solution themselves, thus with ownership of the solution, came commitment.

As a facilitator, Coralie excels, having myself been a participant many times in various projects, focus groups and other activities led by Coralie.  Her research project in 2017 -18 was outstanding, leading to being asked to present her research at several conferences, both here in Australia and New Zealand.

I would wholeheartedly support and recommend Coralie to advocate for evidence-based community partnership in the health sphere. Her high moral compass together with her ability to “get things done” and ability to communicate with all levels, ensures a successful outcome for both the organisation and the client.

Kathy van Oeveren,  BADipEd.   MCom
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22 January 2024