The Dubbo community is now benefitting from an $8.2 million investment by the NSW Government to deliver major upgrades to NSW Health Pathology’s laboratory at Dubbo Health Service.

A brand-new, pur­pose-built pathol­o­gy lab­o­ra­to­ry at Dub­bo Hos­pi­tal will strength­en diag­nos­tic ser­vices for patients and clin­i­cians across the Cen­tral West of NSW.

The new lab­o­ra­to­ry became oper­a­tional on Wednes­day 11 March, fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of con­struc­tion in Feb­ru­ary 2026. The facil­i­ty replaces the pre­vi­ous lab­o­ra­to­ry, which con­tin­ued oper­at­ing through­out the build to ensure unin­ter­rupt­ed pathol­o­gy ser­vices for the region.

The Dub­bo lab­o­ra­to­ry per­forms more than 550,000 pathol­o­gy tests each year, sup­port­ing clin­i­cians with vital infor­ma­tion used to diag­nose, mon­i­tor and treat a wide range of med­ical conditions.

The new lab­o­ra­to­ry will pro­vide pathol­o­gy staff with fit-for-pur­pose facil­i­ties, includ­ing mod­ern, auto­mat­ed test­ing plat­forms that will keep pace with the grow­ing health­care needs of the region, in par­tic­u­lar the recent devel­op­ment of a Region­al Can­cer Centre.

NSW Min­is­ter for Region­al Health Ryan Park said the new facil­i­ty will be a game-chang­er for staff, patients and the local community.

“I am excit­ed that staff will soon have access to this incred­i­ble new pathol­o­gy lab­o­ra­to­ry. Our lab­o­ra­to­ry staff are a crit­i­cal part of our health care team. The results they pro­vide help our clin­i­cians make crit­i­cal deci­sions to sup­port time­ly patient care in our hospitals.

“This first-class facil­i­ty is much larg­er, with the lat­est equip­ment to improve the way staff work in the lab­o­ra­to­ry and is filled with nat­ur­al light. It pro­vides a more mod­ern pathol­o­gy depart­ment to meet the grow­ing health needs of the Dub­bo community.

“I want to extend my sin­cere grat­i­tude to our pub­lic pathol­o­gy teams for the incred­i­ble work they do for our region­al communities.”

“This is a great out­come for our com­mu­ni­ty. These enhance­ments will make a real dif­fer­ence to people’s lives and means the com­mu­ni­ty can access pathol­o­gy ser­vices more quick­ly and clos­er to home,” said Mr Park.

Senior Oper­a­tions Man­ag­er, NSW Health Pathol­o­gy West­ern NSW, Ben Alchin said the move rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward for the team of 45 staff, who have con­tin­ued deliv­er­ing essen­tial ser­vices while work­ing in increas­ing­ly lim­it­ed space.

“The expand­ed lab­o­ra­to­ry fea­tures the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy, includ­ing new chem­i­cal pathol­o­gy analy­sers, and lat­er this year it will also receive new dig­i­tal mor­phol­o­gy scan­ners,” Ben said.

“The chem­i­cal pathol­o­gy analy­sers car­ry out a range of tests, includ­ing for liv­er and kid­ney func­tion and mon­i­tor­ing for dia­betes. An auto­mat­ed track sys­tem was also installed, which will improve the move­ment and pro­cess­ing of pathol­o­gy sam­ples”, Mr Alchin said.

The roll­out of dig­i­tal mor­phol­o­gy scan­ners and report­ing is cur­rent­ly under­way at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy lab­o­ra­to­ries in Dub­bo, Wal­gett, Bourke and Mudgee. This tech­nol­o­gy is mod­ernising blood film analy­sis for con­di­tions like leukaemia and oth­er blood can­cers, reduc­ing turn­around times and improv­ing patient safety.

As part of NSW Health Pathology’s com­mit­ment to envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, the Dub­bo lab­o­ra­to­ry has also been select­ed for a pilot project to install sen­sor taps to con­serve water and sup­port ener­gy efficiency.

“The sus­tain­abil­i­ty pilot project will be a wel­come addi­tion to the new lab­o­ra­to­ry, as our local com­mu­ni­ty here in Dub­bo has lived through many years of drought and we appre­ci­ate how pre­cious our local water sup­ply is,” Mr Alchin said.

The sen­sor taps cre­ate a hygien­ic and safe envi­ron­ment, reduc­ing the chances of cross-con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in the lab­o­ra­to­ry while also con­serv­ing water.

Staff have been com­plet­ing the final prepa­ra­tions which have includ­ed com­mis­sion­ing, val­i­dat­ing and test­ing equip­ment, train­ing and ori­en­ta­tion to ensure the lab­o­ra­to­ry and staff are ready to con­tin­ue deliv­er­ing high qual­i­ty care at Dub­bo Hos­pi­tal from their new laboratory.

A spe­cial thank you to lab man­ag­er Shaleen Shah for lead­ing the rede­vel­op­ment, sup­port­ed by Local Pathol­o­gy Direc­tor Dr Wiesia Wielebin­s­ki, Senior Oper­a­tions Man­ag­er Ben Alchin and for­mer Lab Man­ag­er Monique Mintern. Our Plan­ning team also played a piv­otal role, so thank you to Geoff Chan­nels, Pankaj Gaur and Jo Porter for help­ing bring this project to life.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to the Dub­bo team for their patience, team­work and resilience through­out construction!

Pathol­o­gy Col­lec­tions in Dubbo

Need a blood test or pathol­o­gy col­lec­tion? Our teams at Dub­bo Hos­pi­tal are here to help.

📍 Dub­bo Hos­pi­tal Laboratory
Ground Floor, Myall Street
🕒 Mon–Fri: 7:00am – 4:45pm
🕒 Sat–Sun and pub­lic hol­i­days: 9:00am – 1:00pm

📍 Dub­bo Hos­pi­tal Ambu­la­to­ry Care Centre
First Floor, Myall Street
🕒 Mon–Fri: 7:30am – 4:00pm

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