Closing the Gap

Closing the Gap

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Prestigious health award for groundbreaking Hep C test

Prestigious health award for groundbreaking Hep C test

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NSW Health Pathology and its partners have been recognised for their work in validating the Dried Blood Spot test for diagnosing hepatitis C.

The 2024 NSW Health Awards were held in Syd­ney last week, to recog­nise and cel­e­brate staff and vol­un­teers from across local health dis­tricts, pil­lars, net­works and health organisations.

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy had final­ists in three cat­e­gories – Health Inno­va­tion, Patient Safe­ty First and for Staff Mem­ber of the Year.

We’re proud to say we won the Health Inno­va­tion award along­side our part­ners, Jus­tice Health, Mid North Coast Local Health Dis­trict and the Min­istry of Health for our work in val­i­dat­ing a Dried Blood Spot (DBS) test for hepati­tis C (HCV).

The project is the first of its kind in Aus­tralia, aim­ing to make DBS test­ing a stan­dard diag­nos­tic tool and trans­form­ing HCV test­ing for at-risk populations.

Over six months, the NSW Min­istry of Health in part­ner­ship with four Local Health Dis­tricts, Jus­tice Health NSW and Clarence Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­tre, col­lect­ed 1286 samples.

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy analysed the sam­ples to deter­mine the sen­si­tiv­i­ty and speci­fici­ty of the DBS test and will use the results to apply to the Ther­a­peu­tic Goods Asso­ci­a­tion (TGA) for validation.

If approved, this will be the only HCV DBS test avail­able in Aus­tralia. The part­ner­ships between the NSW Health sec­tor have been essen­tial for the large-scale val­i­da­tion in a short amount of time.

The DBS test pro­vides access to test­ing for vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions includ­ing peo­ple in prison and peo­ple with a his­to­ry of inject­ing drugs and will help NSW Health meet its goal of elim­i­nat­ing HCV as a pub­lic health issue by 2028.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to all the teams involved in this vital work!

Let’s talk about mental health – our video series

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October is mental health month and this year’s theme is ‘Let’s talk about it’. We’re helping to get some important conversations started.

This Octo­ber we’re being encour­aged to reflect on our men­tal health and over­all well­be­ing, irre­spec­tive of whether we’ve per­son­al­ly encoun­tered men­tal illness.

Men­tal Health Month empha­sis­es the sig­nif­i­cance of main­tain­ing good men­tal health in our dai­ly lives and encour­ages a proac­tive approach to seek­ing help when necessary.

Here at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy, we’ve cre­at­ed a video pod­cast series to help get you talk­ing about men­tal health.

We talk to experts and peo­ple with lived expe­ri­ence about their sto­ry and hear about their strate­gies and tips for bet­ter men­tal health.

First up is Craig Hamil­ton – for­mer ABC broad­cast­er, author and men­tal health and well­be­ing speaker.

Craig talks about his expe­ri­ence lead­ing up to his diag­no­sis of depres­sion and bipo­lar. The red flags that he missed and the strate­gies he now uses to main­tain a pos­i­tive men­tal out­look, from get­ting enough sleep, to box­ing and eat­ing well.

Craig also talks about his pow­er­ful new doc­u­men­tary about men­tal health and sui­cide, The Promise, which is now stream­ing on Stan.

 

Our sec­ond episode is all about resilience. We chat to Dr Jae­lea Ske­han – a psy­chol­o­gist and Direc­tor of Every­mind, an organ­i­sa­tion ded­i­cat­ed to the pre­ven­tion of men­tal ill health and suicide.

She dis­cuss­es how resilience can be a dif­fi­cult con­cept, which can put the onus back on indi­vid­u­als to “be strong and push through” times of struggle.

Jae­lea says she prefers to focus on hav­ing a work­place or home envi­ron­ment that is resilient and where peo­ple are sup­port­ed by those around them.

Next we take a look at the link between men­tal health and exercise.

Dr Ryan Drew is a phys­i­cal activ­i­ty researcher at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Newcastle’s School of Bio­med­ical Sci­ences. He talks about what is going on in your body and your brain when you exer­cise and why it’s a cru­cial part of improv­ing our men­tal health and gen­er­al wellbeing.

He shares his top tips for mak­ing exer­cise a reg­u­lar part of your life, even if you are a busy health professional!

Next we chat to Craig Kil­lian – a for­mer NSW Health Pathol­o­gy employ­ee who now works at eHealth. As some­one liv­ing with anx­i­ety and depres­sion, Craig is also an ambas­sador for men­tal health sup­port organ­i­sa­tion, Beyond Blue.

He spends time de-stig­ma­tis­ing the con­cept of men­tal health, de-thron­ing the Impos­si­ble Man, and pro­mot­ing the idea of self-care. He dis­cuss­es the impor­tance of being able to make a plan for good men­tal health and find the time to do things that bring you joy.

Craig reveals that his small moments of joy include some­thing as sim­ple as buy­ing a soft serve cone from McDon­ald’s after a stress­ful day.

Final­ly, we sit down with NSW Health Pathology’s Direc­tor of Peo­ple and Cul­ture, Dr Dean­na Paulin to talk about psy­cho­log­i­cal safety.

We dis­cuss what it means to feel psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly safe at work and why pro­vid­ing a psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly safe space doesn’t mean your work­place can’t be chal­leng­ing, dif­fi­cult or con­stant­ly striv­ing to do better.

If any of the top­ics raised in these videos res­onat­ed with you, or you’d like to find out more, here are some options for you to reach out for sup­port or fur­ther information.

Beyond Blue

My Men­tal Health Fit­ness App

Every­mind

Guide­lines for lan­guage use

Tools to devel­op psy­cho­log­i­cal safe­ty at work

Clin­i­cal Excel­lence Com­mis­sion – resources for man­agers and teams on psy­cho­log­i­cal safety

 

Dr Catherine Pitman appointed Director Public Health Pathology

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Congratulations to Dr Catherine Pitman who has been appointed Director Public Health Pathology, NSW Health Pathology’s statewide service delivering a coordinated response for all NSW notifiable diseases in collaboration with the NSW Ministry of Health.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, Cather­ine was Deputy Direc­tor of Pub­lic Health Pathol­o­gy and had been Act­ing Direc­tor since March 2023, when Pro­fes­sor Dominic Dwyer stepped down. Dur­ing this time, she has capa­bly led the team with pas­sion and ener­gy, so it’s great to see her exper­tise fur­ther recognised.

In addi­tion to this state-wide role, Dr Pit­man is a Staff Spe­cial­ist and Micro­bi­ol­o­gist at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy.  Cather­ine has broad Aus­tralian and inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ence in health infor­mat­ics, infec­tion pre­ven­tion and con­trol, inter­juris­dic­tion­al and Com­mon­wealth Pri­va­cy and Noti­fi­able Dis­ease law and con­sumer cen­tric design.

Key pri­or­i­ties of the Pub­lic Health Pathol­o­gy ser­vice is pro­mot­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion between our expert teams of pathol­o­gists, sci­en­tists, tech­ni­cians, ICT experts, logis­tics, and pathol­o­gy col­lec­tion staff.

As Direc­tor of Pub­lic Health Pathol­o­gy, Dr Pit­man works close­ly with her clin­i­cal peers, NSW Health Pathol­o­gy lab­o­ra­to­ry staff and NSW Min­istry of Health Direc­tors to devel­op appro­pri­ate state-wide advice and input to address pathol­o­gy-relat­ed sys­tem issues, and ensure NSW Health Pathol­o­gy is respond­ing to the evolv­ing needs of NSW cit­i­zens, com­mu­ni­ties and the health system.

Learn more about our statewide Pub­lic Health Pathol­o­gy ser­vice here.

 

Congratulations to our NSW Health Award Finalists

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Congratulations to our NSW Health Pathology staff that have been named a finalist in the 2024 NSW Health Awards for their extraordinary efforts to improve the NSW public health system.

Now in its 26th year, the NSW Health Awards acknowl­edge the staff and pro­grams of work that con­tribute to the well­be­ing of patients and the community.

NSW Health Sec­re­tary Susan Pearce AM said it is real­ly excit­ing to cel­e­brate the peo­ple and teams who are enrich­ing health in mil­lions of ways every day.

“These awards are a chance to recog­nise our incred­i­ble health­care staff and vol­un­teers, across the pub­lic health sys­tem,” Ms Pearce said. “I con­grat­u­late the final­ists, but I also want to acknowl­edge the work being done across the sys­tem every day, by our teams of doc­tors, nurs­es, mid­wives, allied health and sup­port staff.”

 

Congratulations to our finalists

A Dig­i­tal Sin­gle Statewide Pathol­o­gy Test Cat­a­logue – Patient Safe­ty First category

NSWHADigitalStatewidePathologyTestCatalogue

The Dig­i­tal Statewide Pathol­o­gy Test Cat­a­logue is a project by NSW Health Pathol­o­gy (NSWHP). The cat­a­logue pro­vides clin­i­cians with time­ly and up to date infor­ma­tion in a dig­i­tal library to ensure the right tests are request­ed at the right time. This leads to informed deci­sion mak­ing and bet­ter patient care and safe­ty. The cat­a­logue is designed to give a statewide overview of pathol­o­gy test­ing ser­vices and advice for clin­i­cal teams, gen­er­al prac­ti­tion­ers, and patients.

NSWHP oper­ates test­ing ser­vices at 62 loca­tions and is sup­port­ed by over 150 col­lec­tion cen­tres, ensur­ing high-qual­i­ty care for patients and the community.

The cat­a­logue was cre­at­ed in-house by project design­ers, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with clin­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic spe­cial­ists. The large data set includes more than 2,000 tests tai­lored for loca­tion and sci­en­tif­ic spe­cial­i­ty. The plat­form is Acces­si­ble 24/7 via mobile and desk­top devices. The geolo­ca­tion fea­ture deliv­ers per­son­alised guid­ance on test ser­vices, col­lec­tion meth­ods, trans­port, han­dling, billing and patient advice. Strong data gov­er­nance ensures test­ing is con­sis­tent and reli­able across NSW.

The Test Cat­a­logue rep­re­sents a major improve­ment in health­care infor­ma­tion man­age­ment, set­ting a new stan­dard for effi­cien­cy, accu­ra­cy, and bet­ter patient out­comes across NSW’s health system.

 

NSW Dried Blood Spot Hepati­tis C Val­i­da­tion Study – Health Inno­va­tion category

NSWHADriedBloodSpot

The NSW Min­istry of Health part­nered with NSW Health Pathol­o­gy and var­i­ous NSW Health part­ners to val­i­date the Dried Blood Spot (DBS) test for diag­nos­ing hepati­tis C (HCV). The val­i­da­tion of the DBS test is the first of its kind in Aus­tralia. This project aims to make DBS test­ing a stan­dard diag­nos­tic tool, and, if suc­cess­ful, it will change how HCV test­ing is offered for peo­ple at risk of HCV.

Over six months, the NSW Min­istry of Health in part­ner­ship with four Local Health Dis­tricts, Jus­tice Health NSW and Clarence Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­tre, col­lect­ed 1286 sam­ples. NSW Health Pathol­o­gy analysed the sam­ples to deter­mine the sen­si­tiv­i­ty and speci­fici­ty of the DBS test and will use the results to apply to the Ther­a­peu­tic Goods Asso­ci­a­tion (TGA) for val­i­da­tion. If approved, this will be the only HCV DBS test avail­able in Aus­tralia. The part­ner­ships between the NSW Health sec­tor have been essen­tial for the largescale val­i­da­tion in a short amount of time.

The DBS test pro­vides access to test­ing for vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions includ­ing peo­ple in prison and peo­ple with a his­to­ry of inject­ing drugs and will help NSW Health meet its goal of elim­i­nat­ing HCV as a pub­lic health issue by 2028.

 

Sharon Neville – Staff Mem­ber of the Year category

NSWHASharonNeville

Sharon Neville has made an excep­tion­al con­tri­bu­tion to the NSW Health and Jus­tice sys­tems. Her work at the Foren­sic and Ana­lyt­i­cal Sci­ence Ser­vice (FASS) makes NSW a safer place.

Sharon’s work of pro­vid­ing the high­est qual­i­ty foren­sic sci­ence; dis­rupts crime, min­imis­es the health impact of illic­it drugs in the com­mu­ni­ty, sup­ports the appre­hen­sion of per­pe­tra­tors, and pro­vides answers for griev­ing fam­i­lies and vic­tims of crime.

Sharon over­sees the Foren­sic Biology/DNA, Illic­it Drug Analy­sis and Chem­i­cal Crim­i­nal­is­tics units. She is com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing and men­tor­ing col­leagues and col­lab­o­rat­ing with key part­ners, includ­ing NSW Police and the Direc­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions. Her exper­tise is relied on by author­i­ties in NSW and sought after by oth­er juris­dic­tions around Aus­tralia and New Zealand.

Her vision is to pro­vide world-class ser­vices, deliv­er­ing high qual­i­ty, reli­able results as quick­ly as pos­si­ble to sup­port police inves­ti­ga­tions and the courts.
She intro­duced advanced DNA capa­bil­i­ties that have ensured the ear­ly iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of offend­ers, and helped police solve numer­ous cold cas­es. She recent­ly led a team of experts to source and install the lat­est DNA robot­ics technology.

Sharon’s lega­cy will be hav­ing trans­formed the FASS Foren­sic Biology/DNA lab into a world-leader.

The win­ners will be announced on Thurs­day 24 Octo­ber 2024. 

Welcoming Sabrina to our forensics team

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University of Western Sydney student and proud Wiradjuri woman Sabrina Cox has begun an internship at our Forensic & Analytical Science Service at Lidcombe, as part of NSW Health Pathology’s initiative to promote career pathways for First Nations Peoples.

This new intern­ship will allow Sab­ri­na to receive hands-on expe­ri­ence in the day-to-day oper­a­tions of a bustling foren­sics lab.

Cur­rent­ly in her last semes­ter of a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence degree at UWS, Sab­ri­na has had a life­long inter­est in foren­sic sci­ence and its abil­i­ty to help fam­i­ly mem­bers find peace in their dark­est moments.

“Grow­ing up I always had an inter­est in sci­ence and I found foren­sic sci­ence to be quite fas­ci­nat­ing and intrigu­ing. I want­ed to be able to help peo­ple and to be part of a sys­tem that finds answers and clo­sure,” she said.

Sab­ri­na sees the intern­ship as an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty to help shape her career path.

“It is extreme­ly impor­tant as it helps set me up for future employ­ment and cement the skills I have learned at uni by giv­ing me real-life experiences.”

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy is con­tin­u­ing to devel­op intern­ship pro­grams for First Nations peo­ple, as well as peo­ple liv­ing with a dis­abil­i­ty, and will be work­ing towards fill­ing 26 new trainee­ships across region­al and met­ro­pol­i­tan areas of NSW.

Four women standing in an office, smiling.
FASS intern, Sab­ri­na Cox (sec­ond from right) with her new col­leagues Aman­da Homo, Zi Qin Zhang, and Tama­ra Kastak.

For Asso­ciate Direc­tor of Abo­rig­i­nal Part­ner­ships and Inclu­sion Kevin Stan­ley (pic­tured top), these pro­grams play an impor­tant role in attract­ing diverse tal­ent that reflects the com­mu­ni­ties that NSW Health Pathol­o­gy serves.

“NSW Health Pathol­o­gy is proud­ly com­prised of peo­ple from all back­grounds, gen­ders, sex­u­al­i­ties, abil­i­ties and life expe­ri­ences. Our rich diver­si­ty is what has dri­ven our incred­i­ble sci­en­tif­ic advances and suc­cess as the pre­ferred provider of pub­lic pathol­o­gy and foren­sic ser­vices in New South Wales,” Kevin said.

“We are com­mit­ted to cre­at­ing a work­force that reflects the diver­si­ty of the NSW com­mu­ni­ties that we pro­vide crit­i­cal ser­vices to, includ­ing Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander Peo­ples, LGBTQIA+ peo­ple, peo­ple who are cul­tur­al­ly and lin­guis­ti­cal­ly diverse, and peo­ple of all gen­ders, abil­i­ties and ages.”

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy is proud to be pro­vid­ing trainees with valu­able work expe­ri­ence across our lab­o­ra­to­ries and offices around the state – check out their sto­ries here.

Bird flu – experts alert, but not alarmed

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Medical virologist and infectious diseases physician at NSW Health Pathology, Dr Jen Kok, discusses the worldwide bird flu outbreak and what we’re doing to prepare.

Avian influen­za, com­mon­ly known as bird flu, is a viral dis­ease of birds and is found around the world. Some strains have very minor effects on wild birds, while oth­ers can cause severe dis­ease. Cer­tain strains can infect mam­mals includ­ing seals, live­stock, and occa­sion­al­ly humans.

The most well-known strains of bird flu are H5N1 and H7N9 and both have caused seri­ous infec­tions and deaths in humans.

A vari­ant of H5N1, named clade 2.3.4.4b, caus­es sig­nif­i­cant ill­ness and deaths in poul­try, wild birds and mam­mals. It has spread rapid­ly across all con­ti­nents except Aus­tralia and killed mil­lions of wild birds. Human infec­tions are rare and typ­i­cal­ly occur after close con­tact with sick birds and livestock.

The mor­tal­i­ty rate of H5N1 in humans is about 50% in the almost 900 cas­es of peo­ple infect­ed world­wide since 2003, but the mor­tal­i­ty of the 2.3.4.4b clade is sub­stan­tial­ly lower.

We asked Dr Jen Kok, Med­ical Virol­o­gist and Direc­tor of the Cen­tre for Infec­tious Dis­eases and Micro­bi­ol­o­gy – Pub­lic Health (CIDM-PH) at the Insti­tute of Clin­i­cal Pathol­o­gy and Med­ical Research (ICPMR) to explain what is hap­pen­ing and how Aus­tralia is preparing.

“Ongo­ing sur­veil­lance to mon­i­tor for this vari­ant is crit­i­cal, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the ani­mal sec­tor,” he said.

“But there is no need for pan­ic. I would say we are alert, but not alarmed.”

Health author­i­ties in Vic­to­ria and NSW have this year been work­ing to con­tain out­breaks of dif­fer­ent strains of bird flu on sev­er­al poul­try farms near Mel­bourne and Sydney.

Ear­li­er this year the NSW Gov­ern­ment launched its emer­gency biose­cu­ri­ty inci­dent plan to man­age the outbreaks.

Thou­sands of chick­ens have been euthanised and quar­an­tine zones have been set up to restrict the move­ment of birds and equipment.

“The chick­ens culled on farms in Vic­to­ria have had H7N3 and H7N9 strains of avian influen­za, and in NSW it’s the H7N8 strain, not the 2.3.4.4b vari­ant caus­ing con­cern else­where in the world,” Dr Kok said.

“The virus doesn’t typ­i­cal­ly infect humans, because they don’t have the recep­tors in their throats, noses or upper res­pi­ra­to­ry tracts that are sus­cep­ti­ble to the cur­rent bird flu strain.”

Symptoms can be mild

Dr Kok points out that avian influen­za does­n’t always present as just a res­pi­ra­to­ry illness.

“In over­seas cas­es, one of the symp­toms report­ed was con­junc­tivi­tis, which is a fea­ture that we see with low pathogen avian influen­za viruses.

“Some infect­ed peo­ple just get red eyes and noth­ing else, some of them just have very mild symptoms.

“The under-recog­ni­tion of mild symp­toms may be skew­ing the high mor­tal­i­ty rates that are report­ed. The mor­tal­i­ty rate may be even low­er because we don’t recog­nise as many mild cas­es or asymp­to­matic cases.”

Are we prepared for avian flu?

Dr Kok said Aus­tralia is well pre­pared for bird flu.

“This is not like COVID, it’s not a new virus. We know how it behaves and we know how to respond,” he said.

“NSW is pre­pared for diag­nos­tic test­ing. The lab­o­ra­to­ry respons­es, the clin­i­cal respons­es, these are all essen­tial­ly ready to go. As soon as the switch is flicked, all these plans should kick into place.”

He said in addi­tion to mon­i­tor­ing ani­mals, sur­veil­lance has also been ramped up to iden­ti­fy patients who are unwell with influenza.

“Those who are crit­i­cal­ly ill, those who’ve returned from over­seas, those who have had con­tact with birds or sick ani­mals, they’re at poten­tial­ly increased risk of hav­ing avian flu,” Dr Kok said.

“So, if they have influen­za A diag­nosed, then they should have those virus­es sub­typed quick­ly to be able to say whether they have H5N1.

“Here at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy in West­mead, we have the capac­i­ty to sub­type virus­es quick­ly, and we’re one of three World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) Nation­al Influen­za Cen­tres in the coun­try able to do this work, the oth­ers are in Perth and Melbourne.”

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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