Closing the Gap

Closing the Gap

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NSW Government announces $492 million to establish first statewide pathology hub at Westmead

NSW Government announces $492 million to establish first statewide pathology hub at Westmead

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Almost half a billion dollars will be invested in NSW Health Pathology’s new statewide hub at Westmead Hospital, delivering new and enhanced pathology services for the people of Sydney and regional NSW.

The announce­ment was made dur­ing a vis­it to the West­mead lab­o­ra­to­ry this week by the NSW Pre­mier Chris Minns, along­side the Min­is­ter for Health and Region­al Health Ryan Park.

The fund­ing will be includ­ed in the upcom­ing June state bud­get and rep­re­sents the sin­gle largest injec­tion of funds in pathol­o­gy infra­struc­ture in recent times.

In addi­tion to the new build for the Insti­tute of Clin­i­cal Pathol­o­gy and Med­ical Research (ICPMR), the invest­ment will also deliv­er an upgrade to the high secu­ri­ty PC4 bio­con­tain­ment lab­o­ra­to­ry at West­mead – the only one of its kind in the state.

This PC4 lab­o­ra­to­ry tests, iso­lates and con­ducts research on high-risk pathogens that have the poten­tial to be a major infec­tion threat to the wider com­mu­ni­ty such as measles, influen­za, and COVID-19, as well as glob­al threats such as Ebola.

Built in 1978 with min­i­mal refur­bish­ment since, the West­mead lab­o­ra­to­ries con­duct 10,000 pathol­o­gy-relat­ed tests every day.

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy Chief Exec­u­tive Vanes­sa Janis­sen says the labs at West­mead are no longer fit-for-purpose.

“It’s an excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for us to design land­mark pathol­o­gy lab­o­ra­to­ries that will serve the rapid­ly grow­ing com­mu­ni­ties in West­ern Syd­ney region and offer inte­grat­ed sup­port for all our lab­o­ra­to­ries right across NSW,” Ms Janis­sen said.

A woman speaking to a group of people.
NSW Health Pathol­o­gy Chief Exec­u­tive Vanes­sa Janis­sen says the the new Statewide Hub at West­mead will bring ben­e­fits to patients across NSW.

“The Statewide Hub will be designed to enhance future-ready diag­nos­tic ser­vices, bol­ster our pub­lic health response and pan­dem­ic pre­pared­ness, and advance cut­ting-edge med­ical research and train­ing,” she said.

“This will be a turn­ing point in how we deliv­er pathol­o­gy ser­vices across NSW. It pro­vides the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cap­i­talise on rapid advance­ments in new and emerg­ing tech­nol­o­gy for this site and across our oth­er lab­o­ra­to­ries as we con­tin­ue to work as an inte­grat­ed net­work of laboratories.”

NSW Health Pathology’s Direc­tor of ICPMR West­mead, Prof David Brown says the state-of-the-art pathol­o­gy hub will be the largest pub­lic pathol­o­gy lab­o­ra­to­ry in NSW.

“It will har­ness the pow­er of automa­tion and robot­ics pro­vid­ing 10,000 crit­i­cal clin­i­cal results every day to med­ical teams, ensur­ing they have fast access to qual­i­ty diag­nos­tic infor­ma­tion to inform time­ly treat­ment of patients.

“This is about ensur­ing every patient receives the right test, at the right time with the right result.”

A group of people walking down a laboratory corridor.
Prof David Brown tak­ing the NSW Pre­mier Chris Minns, Health Min­is­ter Ryan Park, and MP for Par­ra­mat­ta, Don­na Davis on a tour of the West­mead laboratories.

The Statewide Hub will enhance the speed and accu­ra­cy of diag­no­sis for can­cer patients with cut­ting-edge dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy pro­vid­ing access to world lead­ing spe­cial­ist pathol­o­gists across the state. It will enable pre­ci­sion med­i­cine at scale for NSW.

It will accel­er­ate the adop­tion of cut­ting-edge genomics sequenc­ing capa­bil­i­ties that will ensure NSW patients have access to per­son­alised treat­ments based on their needs.

The Hub will enhance NSW Health Pathology’s research and inno­va­tion capa­bil­i­ties, sup­port­ing vital test­ing for access to clin­i­cal tri­als and crit­i­cal part­ner­ships in trans­la­tion­al research with Local Health Dis­tricts and universities.

It will also be the launch­pad for future med­ical lead­ers with train­ing for pathol­o­gists and sci­en­tists ensur­ing NSW attracts and retains the next gen­er­a­tion of world lead­ing health­care professionals.

Celebrating World Blood Donor Day and the life saving difference our transfusion teams make

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Happy World Blood Donor Day to all those blood donors in our communities, for their selfless generosity and life-saving donations. Meet the transfusion team at our John Hunter Hospital Laboratory.

World Blood Donor Day is cel­e­brat­ed on 14 June. This year’s cam­paign slo­gan, “Give blood, give hope: togeth­er we save lives,” high­lights the life-chang­ing impact blood donors have on those in need.

Every blood dona­tion is a gift of hope. It can mean the dif­fer­ence between life and death for patients in need of transfusions.

Mak­ing sure our first respon­ders have access to blood prod­ucts is the job of NSW Health Pathology’s Trans­fu­sion teams, who man­age the sup­ply of these pre­cious blood and plas­ma dona­tions and ensure they get where they are needed.

“Every­thing stops in the lab once we get these phone calls,” said Caitlin Fos­ter, Act­ing Senior Med­ical Lab­o­ra­to­ry Sci­en­tist – Blood Transfusion.

“The abil­i­ty of our staff to jump into action to get these blood prod­ucts ready in a time­ly man­ner and packed up for the police or aeromed­ical team is tru­ly remarkable.”

Caitlin has been work­ing at our John Hunter Blood Bank for over 5 years and  says it’s an incred­i­bly reward­ing role.

“Know­ing we are assist­ing in pro­vid­ing the best patient care, espe­cial­ly in these urgent and often vul­ner­a­ble moments in the patient’s life is incred­i­bly reward­ing,” she said. A big thank you to every­one work­ing with blood prod­ucts across NSW Health, like the staff pic­tured here from our John Hunter Trans­fu­sion team – Ana, Kel­ly, Amber, Caitlin and Melissa!

World Blood Donor Day on June 14 is a great reminder of the impor­tance of donat­ed blood and blood prod­ucts for the treat­ment of patients across the health system.

If you are able to donate – now is a great time!

If you’d like to roll up your sleeves and donate blood, vis­it www.lifeblood.com.au, call 13 14 95 or down­load the Donate Blood app.

Find out more about our trans­fu­sion pathol­o­gy ser­vice here: www.pathology.health.nsw.gov.au/services/pathology/transfusion

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

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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.

Our Pre-Ana­lyt­i­cal team has been instru­men­tal in achiev­ing this out­come for NSW Health Pathol­o­gy, ensur­ing that our col­lec­tions staff are pro­vid­ing a safe and inclu­sive expe­ri­ence for every­one who access­es our services.

“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

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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

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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

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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

Connect with us

NSW Health Pathology acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the land across NSW whose cultures and customs have nurtured and continue to nurture this land. We would like to pay our respects to the Elders past, present and emerging, for they hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across the state.

Aboriginal Workforce Development Closing the Gap

NSW Health Pathology acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the land across NSW whose cultures and customs have nurtured and continue to nurture this land. We would like to pay our respects to the Elders past, present and emerging, for they hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across the state.

Aboriginal Workforce Development Closing the Gap
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