Closing the Gap

Closing the Gap

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Happy to lend a hand

Happy to lend a hand

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It’s good to know that when you need a hand, your colleagues are happy to help.

We’ve always got each other’s back at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy, nev­er more so than in ear­ly 2022 when our Bowral lab­o­ra­to­ry need­ed a hand and their col­leagues in Camp­bell­town, Bankstown and Liv­er­pool hit the road to help them out.

Bowral has a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary lab­o­ra­to­ry with a small team which ser­vices two hos­pi­tals in the South­ern High­lands. In mid-March, Bowral faced crit­i­cal staff short­ages, which was caus­ing fatigue and a decrease in staff morale. On top of their usu­al shifts, staff were main­tain­ing the on-call ser­vices out of hours, with call-backs a reg­u­lar occurrence.

The lab­o­ra­to­ry man­agers at Bankstown and Camp­bell­town col­lab­o­rat­ed with Oper­a­tions to jump into action, with a plan to deploy staff between three lab­o­ra­to­ries to allow the staff at Bowral some much need­ed respite.

The oper­a­tion saw Camp­bell­town staff pro­vide dai­ly cov­er­age to Bowral lab­o­ra­to­ry while Bankstown and Liv­er­pool staff back­filled their absences to ensure a con­tin­u­a­tion of ser­vices at all laboratories.

This was an excit­ing team build­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty where staff were able to work in lab­o­ra­to­ries they had­n’t vis­it­ed before. Recent stan­dard­i­s­a­tion of equip­ment and mid­dle­ware meant staff could move seam­less­ly between lab­o­ra­to­ries. Peo­ple were able to put a face to a name at the end of the phone and see how the oth­er lab­o­ra­to­ries func­tioned, bring­ing their learn­ings back to their own laboratories.

The Bowral team was very grate­ful to see how will­ing their col­leagues were to help. Many staff mem­bers went above and beyond, com­mut­ing over 2,000 kms over the course of the month to cov­er shifts, even com­plet­ing over­time to meet ser­vice demands and ensure con­tin­u­a­tion of high qual­i­ty, patient-cen­tred services.

We’re proud of our amaz­ing teams for step­ping up to lend a hand when it’s most needed.

All in a day’s work for Wollongong Transfusion Laboratory

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The Aeromedical Retrieval Team has nothing but praise for NSW Health Pathology’s Wollongong Transfusion Laboratory for the vital role they played in providing blood products to a critically injured patient.

When the Aeromed­ical Retrieval team was forced to acti­vate a Retrieval Trans­fu­sion Pro­to­col (RTP) for a trau­ma patient expe­ri­enc­ing mas­sive blood loss, NSW Health Pathology’s Wol­lon­gong trans­fu­sion team sprang into action.

An RTP is used in rare cir­cum­stances when the three red blood cell units on board have been used but the patient needs more.

With immense respon­si­bil­i­ty on their shoul­ders the trans­fu­sion team made sure the cor­rect blood prod­ucts were avail­able and administered.

The para­medics treat­ing the patient at the scene required a fur­ther three units of blood. The trans­fu­sion team coor­di­nat­ed with mem­bers of the NSW Police who picked up the blood prod­ucts and rushed to the scene.

The para­medics con­tin­ued resus­ci­tat­ing the patient when it soon became clear that even more blood prod­ucts were required. They were start­ing to wor­ry, but then they heard the sirens of Police vehi­cles car­ry­ing more units of blood.

As the para­medics urgent­ly trans­port­ed the patient to St George Hos­pi­tal a fur­ther six units were request­ed with two more units wait­ing at the heli­pad, allow­ing a trans­fu­sion to be admin­is­tered on route to theatre.

The patient was even­tu­al­ly sta­bilised despite los­ing more than his total blood volume.

The treat­ing para­medics went out of their way to praise the pathol­o­gy trans­fu­sion team, par­tic­u­lar­ly Eri­ca and Nathan, for their organ­i­sa­tion and effi­cien­cy that played a valu­able role in sav­ing a life.

This event dra­mat­i­cal­ly high­light­ed the impor­tant role the Wol­lon­gong Trans­fu­sion Lab­o­ra­to­ry team plays in deter­min­ing pos­i­tive patient out­comes each day.

While the focus is large­ly on the hero­ic work of our nurs­es, para­medics and doc­tors, it is impor­tant to cel­e­brate the ded­i­cat­ed lab­o­ra­to­ry staff who work mag­ic behind the scenes.

Digital classrooms bridge the COVID divide

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Gillian Rozenberg proved that COVID-19 was no obstacle as she hit the digital highway in her mission to upskill NSW Pathology staff.

In ear­ly 2020, Gillian Rozen­berg, Senior Med­ical Sci­en­tist in Haema­tol­ogy at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy-Rand­wick, was plan­ning on hang­ing up her lab coat after more than 40 years in NSW’s pub­lic pathol­o­gy service.

But before her tran­si­tion into a well-earned retire­ment, she felt a call­ing to pass on her exten­sive knowl­edge in the area of mor­phol­o­gy by going on the road for a year to teach rur­al and region­al staff her craft in two-day face-to-face workshops.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Gillian’s plans for a statewide train­ing road trip were brought to a grind­ing halt with the out­break of COVID-19.

With the world at a stand­still, Gillian was deter­mined to sol­dier on and still deliv­er her exper­tise to NSW Pathol­o­gy staff all over the state. The solu­tion was deliv­er­ing her cours­es through video con­fer­enc­ing via zoom.

Gillian received valu­able sup­port from the Learn­ing and Devel­op­ment and Human Resources teams, in par­tic­u­lar, Siob­han Cun­liffe who helped devel­op a course that could be seam­less­ly deliv­ered online to a diverse work­force. The course offered five, two-hour zoom ses­sions over a three-week peri­od. Each par­tic­i­pant received an exten­sive book­let that con­tained slides for future reference.

In under 12 months Gillian and the team were able to reach 118 staff across NSW which helped ensure her wealth of knowl­edge was passed on to our cur­rent and emerg­ing sci­en­tists and technicians.

This achieve­ment recent­ly earned Gillian and Siob­han the Sup­port­ing Our Peo­ple Team Award in the 2021 NSW Health Pathol­o­gy Awards.

Driving change with hybrid cars

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NSW Health Pathology is committed to reducing its carbon footprint and our take-up of hybrid vehicles is just one example of how we’re making a difference to our environment and our bottom line.

The health of peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties across our state goes hand in hand with the health of our plan­et and envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty is a high pri­or­i­ty here at NSW Health Pathology.

Just one exam­ple of how we’re work­ing to reduce our car­bon foot­print is the roll out of hybrid cars.

In our Strate­gic Plan – Toward 2025, NSWHP com­mit­ted to deliv­er­ing future focused infra­struc­ture and strate­gic com­mis­sion­ing and to lead­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of eco-friend­ly, sus­tain­able ser­vices and workplaces.

The NSWHP Strate­gic Lead­er­ship Team recent­ly agreed to new prin­ci­ples for our couri­er and pool vehi­cle fleet.

NSWHP com­pared pur­chase price, run­ning costs (fuel, ser­vic­ing, repairs, tyres), esti­mat­ed resale val­ue, along with the type of dri­ving, safe­ty, and kilo­me­tres trav­elled each year. The analy­sis found that a hybrid SUV rep­re­sent­ed the best val­ue for NSWHP along with a much bet­ter out­come for the envi­ron­ment due to the low­er CO2 emis­sions of a hybrid vehicle.

This means that NSWHP will tran­si­tion to hybrid SUV vehi­cles when they require replace­ment. All vehi­cles will be owned by NSWHP and will even­tu­al­ly have decals of our Abo­rig­i­nal art­work and mes­sages about low­er­ing envi­ron­men­tal impact.  Vehi­cles will also be moved between sites as required to ensure more even use across the whole fleet.

Paul Dunn, Direc­tor of Finance and Cor­po­rate Ser­vices, said it will ensure low­er over­all costs for the organ­i­sa­tion and very impor­tant­ly low­er envi­ron­men­tal impact.

“Our vehi­cle fleet is now 30% hybrid, and every new vehi­cle is a hybrid,” he said.

“They are a very pop­u­lar choice for our staff and have a great resale value.

“We are already see­ing a reduc­tion in over­all fuel con­sump­tion, of up to 8%, despite increased kilo­me­tres, which could not have come at a bet­ter time with ris­ing fuel prices.”

Mr Dunn said NSWHP is now work­ing to pilot elec­tric vehi­cles at the Foren­sic and Ana­lyt­i­cal Sci­ence Ser­vice (FASS).

“The chal­lenges there are find­ing the right vehi­cle with enough stor­age capac­i­ty to be a couri­er vehi­cle, as well as the long lead times for vehi­cles and infrastructure.”

The great news for future pur­chas­ing is that car options that deliv­er an over­all reduc­tion in the envi­ron­men­tal impact of the fleet are more avail­able than ever.

So next time you see a NSWHP car, look for the hybrid tag and know that efforts are being made with­in our organ­i­sa­tion to green our fleet!

Caring is in the genes

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We are family. I’ve got all my sisters and me… We’d love to introduce you to our father-daughter trio, Tony Austin and his daughters Karla and Hayley who not only live together, but have the pleasure of working together in our Royal North Shore laboratory.

Meet Tony, who has been our Couri­er Man­ag­er at North­ern Syd­ney for the past 13 years and is respon­si­ble for ensur­ing pre­cious spec­i­mens are tak­en to our labs for testing.

Kar­la (left) and Hay­ley (right) have fol­lowed in their Dad’s foot­steps and both work in our Roy­al North Shore lab. Kar­la is a Tech­ni­cal Assis­tant in the Spec­i­men Recep­tion Team and Hay­ley is Tech­ni­cal Assis­tant in the Send­aways Department.

Kar­la and Hay­ley were inspired by their par­ents’ health careers and that’s influ­enced their pas­sion for help­ing people.

Tony enjoys work­ing with his daugh­ters (so he can keep a close eye on them!) and the girls say there are many perks to work­ing with Dad, like get­ting a free ride to work and raid­ing his snack draw­er! When it gets real­ly busy, they know they always have each other’s support.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Tony does­n’t have a Dad joke on hand, but every Fri­day or Sat­ur­day night he can be heard ask­ing “where are you going and who are you going with?” – spo­ken like a true Dad.

As a fam­i­ly, the Austin’s love their two dogs, spend­ing time togeth­er in the great out­doors, or on the sport­ing field, either as play­ers, coach­es and spectators.

Tony, Kar­la and Hay­ley – car­ing for oth­ers is in your genes and we thank you for every­thing you do at NSW Health Pathology.

Want to work for us? Check out all our cur­rent vacan­cies here :  https://bit.ly/3QS9hc9

New Nepean lab construction underway

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Enhanced pathology services to meet the hospital’s growing needs

Work on Nepean Hospital’s new, expand­ed NSW Health Pathol­o­gy lab has started.

The new lab will pro­vide enhanced ser­vices to meet the grow­ing needs of the new hos­pi­tal, which will include an expand­ed emer­gency depart­ment, new neona­tal and adult inten­sive care units, in-cen­tre renal dial­y­sis unit, car­di­ol­o­gy ser­vices and more than 200 inpa­tient beds.

Work start­ed in July fol­low­ing an Abo­rig­i­nal smok­ing cer­e­mo­ny con­duct­ed by Wad­ja Elder Uncle Dal­las Dodd, accom­pa­nied by Nepean Hospital’s Abo­rig­i­nal Health Department.

Set for com­ple­tion in mid-2023, the new lab will be pur­pose-built with an addi­tion­al 1000 m2 space, com­plete with new pathol­o­gy test­ing spaces, recep­tion area, staff ameni­ties and administration.

All clin­i­cal and sup­port ser­vices will be housed togeth­er on the ground floor of Build­ing E (East Block), inte­grat­ed with hos­pi­tal ser­vices and locat­ed adja­cent to the new emer­gency depart­ment, oper­at­ing the­atres and birthing unit.

Nepean Lab Oper­a­tions Man­ag­er Stephen Park­er said the new lab will rev­o­lu­tionise every­day oper­a­tions, and mod­ernise the ser­vices the lab and its ded­i­cat­ed staff pro­vide to hos­pi­tal clin­i­cians and patients.

“This move will pro­vide a num­ber of ben­e­fits for our ser­vice, staff, the hos­pi­tal and the patients we care for,” Stephen explained.

“It means we’ll be able to great­ly expand anatom­i­cal pathol­o­gy, the study of body tis­sue and cells to diag­nose dis­eases includ­ing can­cer, and micro­bi­ol­o­gy, which involves pathol­o­gists look­ing for signs of infec­tious dis­eases caused by micro­scop­ic organ­isms includ­ing virus­es, such as COVID-19, and bac­te­ria. We expect an increase in test requests once the redevelopment’s com­plete, so expand­ing both dis­ci­plines is essential.”

Stephen said the new lab would be a vast improve­ment on the cur­rent pathol­o­gy facilities.

“Our cur­rent lab is in an old, stand­alone build­ing from the 1970s,” Stephen explained. “I’m told by some of my long-serv­ing col­leagues that pathol­o­gy ser­vices moved in in 1994 and have been out­grow­ing the build­ing ever since.

“Our ser­vices are split over two floors and we have no room for growth, so a 30 per­cent increase in floor space will cer­tain­ly help. Being all togeth­er on one floor will gen­er­al­ly improve how we work and com­mu­ni­ca­tion through­out the lab.

“We’ll also have improved shared areas for col­lab­o­ra­tion, teach­ing and mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary team meet­ings – a vast improve­ment from what’s cur­rent­ly avail­able,” Stephen said.

The new lab also will pro­vide improved facil­i­ties to sup­port ongo­ing research at NSW Health Pathology.

“Our team’s real­ly excit­ed to see work hap­pen and look­ing for­ward to work­ing in pur­pose-built facil­i­ties,” Stephen said. “We won’t know our­selves, really.”

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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