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Proud to be Australia’s only silver service health provider for LGBTQIA+ inclusion

Proud to be Australia’s only silver service health provider for LGBTQIA+ inclusion

NSW Health Pathology is proud to be partnering with ACON as part of our ongoing work under the NSW Health LGBTQIA+ Strategy.

ACON is Australia’s lead­ing LGBTQIA+ com­mu­ni­ty organ­i­sa­tion and recent­ly, NSW Health Pathol­o­gy par­tic­i­pat­ed for the third time in ACON’s annu­al Health + Well­be­ing Equal­i­ty Index (HWEI).

The index assess­es and bench­marks LGBTQIA+ inclu­sive ser­vice deliv­ery among health, well­be­ing and human ser­vice providers.

At the recent Aus­tralian Pride in Health + Well­be­ing Awards cer­e­mo­ny held by ACON, NSW Health Pathol­o­gy was incred­i­bly proud to be recog­nised as Australia’s only sil­ver ser­vice provider for LGBTQIA+ inclu­sion in the health category.

In order to achieve the sil­ver sta­tus NSW Health Pathol­o­gy need­ed to obtain high scores in the HWEI and pro­vide evi­dence of a sub­stan­tial amount of sus­tained or new work in this area.

ACON said NSW Health Pathol­o­gy is con­sid­ered to have been high­ly active in our inclu­sion of sex­u­al­i­ty and gen­der diverse com­mu­ni­ties in com­par­i­son to the nation­al bench­mark for the assessed year.

“We achieved bronze sta­tus for the first time last year, and it is a marked achieve­ment to progress to the sil­ver sta­tus with­in a year,” said Jes­si­ca Lee, Deputy Direc­tor Strate­gic HR and Projects at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy and Exec­u­tive Co-Spon­sor of the LGBTQIA+ Strat­e­gy. (pic­tured above left)

“This reflects our ongo­ing ded­i­ca­tion and sup­port to mak­ing NSW Health Pathol­o­gy an inclu­sive envi­ron­ment for LGBTQIA+ patients and staff.

“One of the key improve­ments rolled out in the last 12 months is the LGBTQIA+ Inclu­sion Train­ing for our front­line fac­ing staff which focus­es on edu­cat­ing and sup­port­ing our staff on how to pro­vide safe, inclu­sive care for LGBTQIA+ peo­ple when they vis­it our service.

“This is sup­port­ed by the Wel­come Affir­ma­tion cards we offer in our col­lec­tion cen­tres which alert staff that a patient’s med­ical records may not match their cho­sen name.”

Business cards and colourful LGBTQIA+ stickers and rainbow lanyards spread out on a green desk.
The wel­come affir­ma­tion cards avail­able at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy col­lec­tion cen­tres. (Pho­to: SESLHD)

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy also dis­plays inclu­sion posters and oth­er rain­bow sym­bols of inclu­sion in patient-fac­ing areas.

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy Chief Exec­u­tive Vanes­sa Janis­sen said she was proud to be lead­ing an organ­i­sa­tion that is cre­at­ing an envi­ron­ment where all patients and col­leagues feel safe and welcome.

“Pathol­o­gy ser­vices are often someone’s first con­tact with the NSW Health sys­tem, and we set the tone for their expe­ri­ence. We need to be wel­com­ing and safe,” Vanes­sa said.

“Each June dur­ing Pride Month is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate our diver­si­ty and fos­ter a sense of belonging.”

From nursing to patient safety and preparing for disasters

NSW Health Pathology has farewelled Meredith Caelli, who is retiring after a 42-year career working across multiple roles in the health sector.

Staff gath­ered at NSW Health Pathology’s New­cas­tle office in May 2025 to cel­e­brate the four decades Mered­ith has ded­i­cat­ed to the health and well­be­ing of patients across NSW.

She round­ed out her career as the Dis­as­ter Coor­di­na­tor for NSW Health Pathol­o­gy, where she has worked for 10 years.

“I am proud to have worked as part of an organ­i­sa­tion where every­one shows up not to just do a job, but to sup­port each oth­er, to serve some­thing big­ger than them­selves, and to strive for excel­lence in every­thing they do,” she said.

“What has always stood out for me is the atti­tude that says – talk to us about what you need, and let’s work togeth­er so we can be the best ver­sion of ourselves.

“That mind­set; open, prac­ti­cal, and qui­et­ly ambi­tious, shapes the way the teams across Pathol­o­gy work and is some­thing I have gen­uine­ly admired.”

A woman sits at a table surrounded by balloons with the message, happy retirement.
Mered­ith cel­e­brat­ing her retirement.

Mered­ith thanked her col­leagues at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy who she praised for act­ing with open­ness and col­le­gial­i­ty, help­ing her to suc­ceed in her role.

“Dur­ing my time in health I have worked as a nurse, infec­tion con­trol nurse prac­ti­tion­er, pub­lic health nurse con­sul­tant, patient safe­ty man­ag­er, enter­prise risk man­ag­er, inter­nal audit man­ag­er, pan­dem­ic pre­pared­ness offi­cer, and final­ly as a mem­ber of the Emer­gency Man­age­ment Unit.”

She says she is most proud of her work to ini­ti­ate the design and deliv­ery of a mass vac­ci­na­tion clin­ic in a rur­al com­mu­ni­ty, which paved the way for sim­i­lar clin­ics to be estab­lished dur­ing the COVID pan­dem­ic, com­plet­ing her PhD, and help­ing to devel­op the first statewide infec­tion con­trol data­base in NSW.

“Over the years I have learnt a lot, shared wins, com­mis­er­at­ed when we have fall­en short, but through­out it all I have felt safe, val­ued, respect­ed and appre­ci­at­ed at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy. I have tru­ly been very fortunate.”

We wish you all the best for the future Mered­ith! You will be missed.

Pathology services for the future

NSW Health Pathology is currently developing our next strategic plan, which will guide how we design and deliver our services to the people of NSW over the next five to ten years.

We want to bet­ter under­stand what peo­ple across NSW want, need and expect from us.

Your expe­ri­ence and input will help us to pro­vide the best pos­si­ble pathol­o­gy ser­vices, now and into the future.

How can you have your say

There are two main ways for you to be involved and to have your say:

  1. Com­plete our patient, car­er and fam­i­ly expe­ri­ence survey
  2. Reg­is­ter to take part in an online focus group

We are also flex­i­ble about how and where you’d like to pro­vide your feed­back. To share your lived or liv­ing expe­ri­ence, we know that long form writ­ing, pho­tos, poet­ry, and col­lage can be powerful.

Please feel free to send through your feed­back in a way that is best for you by email to [email protected].

Collaborating to combat Antimicrobial Resistance

Our microbiology experts recently travelled to Austria for a World Health Organization meeting to showcase the latest efforts to combat global antimicrobial resistance.

Antimi­cro­bial resis­tance (AMR) is a major threat to mod­ern med­i­cine and glob­al health secu­ri­ty. The main cause of antibi­ot­ic resis­tance is antibi­ot­ic use. When we use antibi­otics, some bac­te­ria die but resis­tant bac­te­ria can sur­vive and even mul­ti­ply. The overuse of antibi­otics makes resis­tant bac­te­ria more common.

The World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) is work­ing on glob­al actions to address AMR across human, ani­mal, agri­cul­ture and the envi­ron­men­tal sectors.

The WHO AMR Sur­veil­lance and Qual­i­ty Assess­ment Col­lab­o­rat­ing Cen­tres Net­work (WHO AMR CC Net­work) is a glob­al part­ner­ship of insti­tu­tions brought togeth­er by the WHO to sup­port coun­tries to strength­en their response to AMR.

The Network’s mis­sion is to assist the WHO to sup­port coun­tries to build capac­i­ty to devel­op and imple­ment AMR sur­veil­lance. NSW Health Pathology’s Rand­wick lab­o­ra­to­ry plays a cen­tral role in this effort.

The NSWHP Rand­wick WHO Col­lab­o­rat­ing Cen­tre, led by Pro­fes­sor Mon­i­ca Lahra, is serv­ing as the coor­di­nat­ing Col­lab­o­rat­ing Cen­tre for the WHO of the AMR CC Net­work for 2024–2026.g

Pro­fes­sor Mon­i­ca Lahra (Micro­bi­ol­o­gist and WHO CC Direc­tor), Pro­fes­sor Sebas­ti­aan van Hal (Micro­bi­ol­o­gist and Direc­tor NSWHP RPA Genomics), Dr Rob George (Micro­bi­ol­o­gist and Direc­tor of Med­ical Ser­vices) and Ms Savan­nah Gill (Pro­gramme Man­ag­er, WHO CC) from NSW Health Pathol­o­gy WHO Col­lab­o­rat­ing Cen­tre trav­elled to Vien­na, Aus­tria in April 2025.

They attend­ed the 5th WHO CC AMR Net­work Meet­ing and WHO activ­i­ties at the 2025 Euro­pean Soci­ety of Clin­i­cal Micro­bi­ol­o­gy and Infec­tious Dis­eases (ESCMID) Glob­al Congress.

The WHO host­ed a ded­i­cat­ed booth co-host­ed by NSW Health Pathol­o­gy and Robert Koch Insti­tute, Ger­many to raise aware­ness of the Net­work and its work.

A man and a woman standing at a World Health Organization booth at a conference
Dr Savan­nah Gill (NSWHP) and Andrey Verich (PhD stu­dent UNSW) at the WHO booth ESCMID Austria.

Hun­dreds of del­e­gates par­tic­i­pat­ed in dis­cus­sions at the WHO AMR Net­work booth, with infor­ma­tion about the Net­work and a diverse selec­tion of WHO and AMR CC Net­work mate­ri­als show­cased, gen­er­at­ing sus­tained inter­est through­out the event.

The 5th WHO AMR CC Net­work Annu­al Meet­ing was co-host­ed by the WHO Gene­va, NSWHP WHO CC and the Robert Koch Insti­tute Ger­many. This meet­ing brought togeth­er par­tic­i­pants from 36 key insti­tu­tions across the globe to review progress, align pri­or­i­ties, and strength­en col­lab­o­ra­tion across the network.

The meet­ing fea­tured pre­sen­ta­tions from WHO Head­quar­ters high­light­ing WHO’s cur­rent strate­gic and oper­a­tional pri­or­i­ties, AMR Sur­veil­lance and Lab­o­ra­to­ry capac­i­ty, antimi­cro­bial use sur­veil­lance and antimi­cro­bial stewardship.

Pro­fes­sor Lahra gave a pre­sen­ta­tion on the recent work of the NSW Health Pathol­o­gy WHO Col­lab­o­rat­ing Cen­tre AUS-72, high­light­ing net­work activ­i­ties and exper­tise align­ing with strate­gic goals for the Network.

“We are proud to be lead­ing this sur­veil­lance work here in Aus­tralia and ensur­ing that we are coor­di­nat­ing our glob­al response to this major health threat,” Prof Lahra said.

NSW Health Pathology’s lead­er­ship in the WHO AMR Sur­veil­lance CC Net­work meet­ing rein­forces its vital role in the inter­na­tion­al response to AMR and its ongo­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with WHO in chal­leng­ing times.

(Top pho­to: Prof Sebas­ti­aan van Hal, Prof Mon­i­ca Lahra, Dr Insik Kong (WHO Gene­va), Dr Rob George, Dr Savan­nah Gill)

What can you do to help?

The more we use antibi­otics, the more chance of antimi­cro­bial resis­tance. But there are things we can all do every day to help reduce antibi­ot­ic resistance.*

1. Pre­vent infec­tions by reg­u­lar­ly wash­ing your hands and keep­ing up to date with vaccinations

2. Pre­vent food-borne infec­tions by wash­ing fruits and veg­eta­bles and cook­ing food properly

3. Under­stand that antibi­otics only work against bac­te­ria. They do not work for colds and flus which are caused by viruses

4. Only take antibi­otics when they are pre­scribed for you, don’t use or share left­over antibiotics

5. Fol­low your health professional’s instruc­tions when you are pre­scribed antibiotics

*Source: https://www.amr.gov.au/what-you-can-do

Vale Professor Creswell John Eastman AO

Professor Cres Eastman AO, a pioneering Australian endocrinologist and globally recognised public health advocate, has died at the age of 85, leaving behind a lasting legacy of leadership at NSW Health Pathology.

Born on 30 March 1940 in Nar­ran­dera NSW, Pro­fes­sor East­man devot­ed his life to the erad­i­ca­tion of iodine defi­cien­cy dis­or­ders (IDD), pro­found­ly trans­form­ing glob­al health out­comes and earn­ing the fit­ting title “the man who saved a mil­lion brains.”

A dis­tin­guished grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney, where he earned his MBBS in 1965 and MD in 1980, Pro­fes­sor East­man com­menced his med­ical career that same year. He was admit­ted as a Fel­low of the Roy­al Aus­tralasian Col­lege of Physi­cians in 1974 and held numer­ous influ­en­tial aca­d­e­m­ic and clin­i­cal posi­tions through­out his career.

A black and white photo of a man in a laboratory with a microscope.
Pro­fes­sor East­man’s work iden­ti­fied the effects of iodine defi­cien­cies. (Pho­to: The Roy­al Aus­tralasian Col­lege of Physicians)

Notably, he served as Direc­tor of the Insti­tute of Clin­i­cal Pathol­o­gy and Med­ical Research (ICPMR) at West­mead Hos­pi­tal from 1989 to 2006.

Fol­low­ing this, he con­tin­ued his vital work as Clin­i­cal Pro­fes­sor of Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney and as Con­sul­tant Emer­i­tus at West­mead Hos­pi­tal until his passing.

In the 1980s, Pro­fes­sor East­man iden­ti­fied wide­spread iodine defi­cien­cy in Chi­na and Tibet, where the dis­or­der caused severe devel­op­men­tal impair­ments in chil­dren. His tire­less advo­ca­cy and ground­break­ing research were instru­men­tal in the imple­men­ta­tion of nation­al iodiza­tion pro­grams, which dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduced the inci­dence of cre­tinism and goitre in these regions.

His efforts extend­ed to South­east Asia, the Pacif­ic Islands, and Indige­nous Aus­tralian com­mu­ni­ties, where he empha­sised the crit­i­cal impor­tance of iodine in pre­na­tal and ear­ly child­hood health.

A group of children, with a man examining the neck of one child.
Pro­fes­sor East­man exam­in­ing Tibetan school­child­ren for goitre in Tibet in 2000.

In 1997, he was appoint­ed Direc­tor and Chief Gov­ern­ment Ana­lyst of the Divi­sion of Ana­lyt­i­cal Lab­o­ra­to­ries (DAL) in Lid­combe. Under his lead­er­ship, the DAL pro­vid­ed crit­i­cal pub­lic health ana­lyt­i­cal and foren­sic med­ical ser­vices to the entire state of NSW.

Through­out his dis­tin­guished career, Pro­fes­sor East­man received numer­ous hon­ours, includ­ing the Offi­cer of the Order of Aus­tralia in 2018 for dis­tin­guished ser­vice to med­i­cine, par­tic­u­lar­ly to the dis­ci­pline of pathology.

He received the Premier’s Gold Ser­vice Award in 2002 and was a final­ist for Senior Aus­tralian of the Year in 2003. His most recent award was the 2023 Iodine Glob­al Net­work (IGN) Dr Basil Het­zel Award, in recog­ni­tion of his advo­ca­cy in cur­rent iodine nutri­tion in Aus­tralia where­by manda­to­ry iodized salt in bread ensures ade­quate intake for the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion while sup­ple­men­ta­tion is rec­om­mend­ed for preg­nant women due to increased requirements.

Pro­fes­sor East­man’s endur­ing lega­cy lives on in the mil­lions of chil­dren world­wide who have been spared the dev­as­tat­ing effects of iodine defi­cien­cy due to his work.

His ded­i­ca­tion to pub­lic health and med­ical research has been firm­ly embed­ded with­in the Insti­tute for Clin­i­cal Pathol­o­gy and Med­ical Research—an insti­tu­tion he led for 17 years. Today, NSW Health Pathol­o­gy con­tin­ues to uphold the prin­ci­ples and com­mit­ments that Pro­fes­sor East­man cham­pi­oned, serv­ing com­mu­ni­ties across the state.

Pro­fes­sor East­man died on Sat­ur­day 17 May 2025 peace­ful­ly at home. He is sur­vived by his fam­i­ly and a gen­er­a­tion of col­leagues who car­ry for­ward his unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to glob­al health. His pro­found con­tri­bu­tions to endocrinol­o­gy and pub­lic health have left an indeli­ble mark on med­i­cine and human­i­ty, inspir­ing ongo­ing efforts to improve lives worldwide.

Haematologist recognised as a Highly Ranked Scholar for “exceptional scholarly performance”

NSW Health Pathology Senior Staff Specialist in Haematology Professor Beng Chong has been named a highly ranked scholar for 2024 by ScholarGPS for the outstanding quality of his research work into blood clots and bleeding disorders.

As a 2024 High­ly Ranked Schol­ar, Prof Chong has ranked in the top 0.05% of all schol­ars world­wide in recog­ni­tion of his “excep­tion­al schol­ar­ly per­for­mance, the high impact of his work, and the out­stand­ing qual­i­ty of his schol­ar­ly contributions.”

Prof Chong was also ranked in the top 0.19% of all schol­ars glob­al­ly in Med­i­cine, 0.25% in Pathol­o­gy and in Throm­bo­sis 0.1%.

He has pub­lished 255 research papers since 1982.

He is involved in clin­i­cal work as NSW Health Pathology’s Senior Staff Spe­cial­ist in Haema­tol­ogy at St George and Suther­land Hos­pi­tals but main­tains a strong focus on research.

“My research ranges from basic sci­ence research to clin­i­cal trials/registry stud­ies and trans­la­tion research,” Prof Chong explains.

“My basic sci­ence stud­ies focus on mech­a­nisms of throm­bot­ic and bleeding/thrombocytopenia dis­or­ders, as well as mech­a­nisms of throm­bo­sis in car­dio­vas­cu­lar (heart) dis­ease and stroke.

“I’ve been involved in exten­sive clin­i­cal tri­als of anti­co­ag­u­lants, which are now wide­ly used for the pre­ven­tion and treat­ment of throm­bot­ic (blood clot) disorders.

“My cur­rent focus in mech­a­nisms of throm­bo­sis is inves­ti­ga­tion of the role of white cells, par­tic­u­lar­ly neu­trophils, and red cells besides the tra­di­tion­al roles of platelets and blood coag­u­la­tion in the for­ma­tion of blood clots.”

Dr Bente Talseth-Palmer, NSWHP Research Oper­a­tions Man­ag­er, says the organ­i­sa­tion places a high pri­or­i­ty on sup­port­ing its researchers.

“NSW Health Pathol­o­gy aims to build a bet­ter health and jus­tice sys­tem by lead­ing vital research that dri­ves inno­va­tion,” she said.

“It’s inspir­ing to see researchers like Prof Chong being recog­nised for their work—because it’s this kind of research that leads to faster, more accu­rate care for peo­ple affect­ed by blood clots and bleed­ing disorders.”

 

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