With a medical career spanning three decades and multiple countries, neurologist and movement disorder specialist Dr Meena Raj has seen Parkinson’s disease care evolve significantly.

Standing alongside people during some of the most difficult moments of their lives and making sure they leave hospital supported, safe and heard is second nature to senior social worker Madeleine Wilde. 

After completing a Bachelor of Social Work, she undertook her student placement with Queensland Health in cancer services, which confirmed hospital social work was where she wanted to be.

“I really loved working in a hospital setting as a student,” Madeleine said. 

For Perioperative Services Clinical Nurse Consultant (CNC) Annette Bird, care is not confined to a workplace, a species, or a set of hours.

When Senior Occupational Therapist Nicole steps into the specialist dementia units at Gold Coast University Hospital (GCUH), her focus is not simply on managing symptoms, it’s on helping people feel safe, respected, and connected at what can be a deeply unsettling time.

After six years of failed IVF, Nicole was onto her last embryo.
There were many happy tears when she was told the transfer was successful and she was finally having a baby boy - Emmett.

At 2.30am, the phone rings. Gold Coast University Hospital (GCUH) Interventional Cardiologist, Professor Kuljit Singh, is instantly awake.
Within minutes he is on the road, heading to hospital to treat someone having a heart attack.

Completion of the Concept Design phase for the new Coomera Hospital marks a significant planning milestone in delivering improved health services for the rapidly growing northern Gold Coast community.

Music is part of us.

It’s there when we’re happy, when we’re sad, or when words fall short. It connects us to ourselves and to each other.

Inside our hospital wards, music therapists Kelsey Passlow, Lani Lawson and Rebecca Holdorf are using music as a powerful tool for healing.

For Rebecca, music is how she understands the world. 

“Music is a vehicle for connection, whether it’s to yourself, your community or your environment. It allows people to share parts of themselves in a way that feels authentic,” Rebecca said. 

For many veterans like Jannine, the values learned through military service including teamwork, compassion and resilience continue to guide their contribution to the community long after active duty ends.

“You will be wet, homesick and frightened, but the pride of the fleet will be you.”  

Those words from an Australian Navy recruitment advertisement in the 1980s changed the course of Gold Coast Health Clinical Nurse Jannine Quigg’s life.

Eighteen-year-old Broadbeach Waters local Robert Barber first sensed something was wrong when a simple lap around his school oval left him unusually breathless. 

Days later, standing in the surf with friends, he felt cold, dizzy and struggled to stay upright.

“I just thought I had low iron or something,” Robert said.

But a blood test showed his haemoglobin was 84, and within days it dropped to around 60 (haemoglobin of around 135 is considered normal).

“It all happened pretty quickly,” he said.