⚠️Content warning – this story discusses infant loss. 

Senior Forensic Mortuary Technician at NSW Health Pathology’s Forensic & Analytical Science Service at Lidcombe, Hayley Mitrevski, has won a Healthcare Heroes Award for her important work supporting grieving parents after the loss of a baby.

Hay­ley intro­duced a new ini­tia­tive, cast­ing the feet of babies who go through the mor­tu­ary to pro­vide par­ents with a tan­gi­ble keep­sake of their child. It’s a won­der­ful, heart­felt ges­ture car­ry­ing the weight of a life­time of love.

Hay­ley has also trained her fel­low tech­ni­cians in the process, ensur­ing the ser­vice con­tin­ues when she takes mater­ni­ty leave herself.

In July, Hay­ley Mitrevs­ki was announced as the lat­est win­ner of Dr Woof Apparel’s Health­care Hero Awards, and it’s not hard to see why.

In a pro­fes­sion that most of us could nev­er imag­ine step­ping into, Hay­ley shows up every day not just to do her job, but to bring a small mea­sure of com­fort to fam­i­lies at their most heart­break­ing moment.

Work­ing in the Foren­sic Med­i­cine and Coroner’s Court at Lid­combe, Hay­ley recog­nised a qui­et gap in how health­care sys­tems sup­port griev­ing par­ents after the loss of a baby.

Instead of accept­ing the sta­tus quo, she intro­duced a new ini­tia­tive: with the con­sent of the fam­i­lies, she lov­ing­ly casts the feet of babies who pass through the facil­i­ty, and sends the casts home to par­ents as a ten­der, tan­gi­ble keep­sake, entire­ly free of charge.

“I spent a 12-month sec­ond­ment work­ing at the Vic­to­ri­an Insti­tute of Foren­sic Med­i­cine which real­ly shaped the expe­ri­ence I have today. They intro­duced me to the con­cept of this type of mem­o­ra­bil­ia which led me to bring back this knowl­edge and apply it with­in NSW Health Pathology’s Foren­sic Med­i­cine facil­i­ties,” Hay­ley said.

“We already imple­ment mem­o­ra­bil­ia in the form of ink prints how­ev­er I felt as tech­ni­cians we could give back fur­ther and real­ly cre­ate a tan­gi­ble keep­sake. I sur­veyed fam­i­lies through sur­veys I’ve con­duct­ed, who expressed they could­n’t thank us enough. Many fam­i­lies are often too wrapped in their grief and some­times don’t even think about mem­o­ra­bil­ia pos­si­bil­i­ties at the time,” Hay­ley said.

“Some­times it’s already too late to do so – or fam­i­lies may not be able to afford the cost of pro­fes­sion­al com­pa­nies due to such an unex­pect­ed loss. I did­n’t want those fam­i­lies to miss out on some­thing they at least now have an option to have,” she said.

And while that alone would be extra­or­di­nary, Hay­ley didn’t stop there.

She’s also trained her fel­low tech­ni­cians in the process, ensur­ing the ser­vice con­tin­ues when she takes mater­ni­ty leave herself.

Hay­ley was nom­i­nat­ed by col­league Abby-Lee Hon­ey­sett who said Hay­ley want­ed fam­i­lies to have a memen­to to remind them of their lit­tle baby because you don’t get a lot of time to say good­bye, so these mem­o­ries are so impor­tant for the griev­ing process.

Hay­ley is a shin­ing exam­ple of NSW Health Pathology’s RITES Val­ues – Respect, Integri­ty, Team­work, Excel­lence and Safe­ty. She pro­vides care, con­nec­tion, and gen­uine com­pas­sion for peo­ple going through an unimag­in­able time.

The award, which is run by med­ical fash­ion label Dr Woof Appar­el, recog­nis­es the hard-work­ing leg­ends of Australia’s health­care sys­tem, from nurs­es and GPs to emer­gency work­ers, pathol­o­gy staff and more.

See Hayley’s reac­tion when she won.

Con­grat­u­la­tions on this award Hay­ley. Thanks for cre­at­ing this impor­tant lega­cy, and bring­ing human­i­ty and heart to all fam­i­lies who encounter our foren­sic med­i­cine services.

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