“If we don’t look after our own, who else will?”

Our Hunter-based staff have rallied to support colleagues impacted by the recent Mid North Coast floods.

They organ­ised a deli­cious “Pearl of the Indi­an Ocean” cook-off in July, putting togeth­er meal packs that were pur­chased by our lab staff.

Hunter New Eng­land Senior Oper­a­tions Man­ag­er Greg Irwin said a total of $2,175 was raised, with $1,900 from the sale of 47 din­ner packs and $275 in direct donations.

“Hours of love and ded­i­ca­tion was poured into the menu and every meal. All the ingre­di­ents and time donat­ed by the vol­un­teers,” Greg said.

The funds have been even­ly dis­trib­uted among three staff mem­bers from Kempsey and Taree who lost so much dur­ing the severe floods, with each staff mem­ber receiv­ing a $725 gift card.

Thanks to every­one who jumped into their kitchens to cook, and who pur­chased the meals. It’s so love­ly to see how a small act of kind­ness can go a long way to sup­port our col­leagues who are doing it tough right now.

The floods in May 2025 caused severe dam­age across the Hunter and Mid North Coast regions.

In our Taree and Kempsey lab­o­ra­to­ries, staff stayed over many nights to ensure urgent pathol­o­gy test­ing could be com­plet­ed when roads were cut off due to the ris­ing floodwater.

Our thoughts are with every per­son, fam­i­ly, and com­mu­ni­ty grap­pling with the after­math and the recov­ery efforts.

Topics