Built-in robots a key feature of new system at Liverpool Laboratory

The NSW Minister for Skills, TAFE and Tertiary Education Steve Whan visited our pathology laboratory at Royal North Shore Hospital during Skills Week 2024, where he announced a second round of government traineeships and apprenticeships.

As part of Skills Week cel­e­bra­tions this year, NSW Health Pathol­o­gy Chief Exec­u­tive Vanes­sa Janis­sen showed the Min­is­ter around our lab­o­ra­to­ry at Roy­al North Shore Hos­pi­tal (RNSH) where he met four of our new trainees and talked about how their trainee­ships are going.

In June 2024 NSW Health Pathol­o­gy wel­comed 21 new trainees under the first round of the state government’s 1,000 NSW Pub­lic Sec­tor Appren­tices and Trainees Program.

The intake tar­get­ed dis­ad­van­taged and mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties and First Nations people.

Our Direc­tor of Peo­ple and Cul­ture Dr Dean­na Paulin explains how this con­nects to our Peo­ple Strategy.

“We know that our peo­ple are their best when they feel like they belong. These trainee­ships are one of our key ini­tia­tives under our Peo­ple Strat­e­gy Pri­or­i­ty Out­come 6: Reflect­ing the diverse com­mu­ni­ties we serve,” she said.

“We are very excit­ed to sup­port our trainees who come from a broad range of back­grounds to have a reward­ing career in Health when they may not oth­er­wise get an oppor­tu­ni­ty to work.”

Trainees Richard Ruther­ford and Jaime Reyes are both based at the Roy­al North Shore Hos­pi­tal pathol­o­gy lab. Richard works at Cen­tral Spec­i­men Recep­tion and Jaime in Collections.

In Cen­tral Spec­i­men Recep­tion, all the pathol­o­gy spec­i­mens at the hos­pi­tal are sent through to the team for sort­ing and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, data entry and dis­tri­b­u­tion to oth­er pathol­o­gy test­ing areas. In Col­lec­tions, our phle­botomists or col­lec­tors, per­form venepunc­ture col­lec­tions for a wide range of patients and pre­pare spec­i­mens for stor­age and trans­porta­tion to dif­fer­ent test­ing laboratories.

Richard lives with sev­er­al invis­i­ble dis­abil­i­ties that have proved chal­leng­ing while look­ing for employment.

He says the trainee­ship has giv­en him his first chance at some work experience.

“This is the first job I’ve had, and it’s been an eye-open­ing expe­ri­ence,” he said.

“I didn’t think I had the abil­i­ty to hold down a job before, but it’s giv­en me rou­tine and the con­fi­dence to know that I can han­dle the work. It’s only been a cou­ple of months, but I’ve proven to myself that I can do it.

“I absolute­ly love the team I am work­ing with here at Cen­tral Spec­i­men Recep­tion at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy at Roy­al North Shore Hos­pi­tal. They have been very wel­com­ing and sup­port­ive. My boss and a few of the peo­ple I work with in the lab have already offered to help me if I am strug­gling with my TAFE stud­ies, so that has also been a great con­fi­dence boost.”

For Jaime in Col­lec­tions, it’s been a chance to learn more about what blood col­lec­tors do.

“Pri­or to work­ing here as a trainee, my only knowl­edge of what blood col­lec­tors did was that they col­lect­ed blood for my local GP. I am now learn­ing there is a lot more to the job, but essen­tial­ly, it’s about work­ing with peo­ple and mak­ing sure they feel comfortable.”

Jaime also lives with an invis­i­ble disability.

“Through­out my time work­ing in casu­al jobs, I devel­oped a fear of telling peo­ple about my dis­abil­i­ty,” Jaime explains.

“I felt like I was a bur­den, risk­ing my employ­ment if I said anything.

“I under­stood that this job was very peo­ple-cen­tred and that was some­thing that strong­ly aligned with my own aspi­ra­tions to work with people.

“To be able to build rela­tion­ships where peo­ple could see me as some­one who was empa­thet­ic and helped them through get­ting their blood col­lec­tion done, this was some­one that I want­ed to be.”

Ernest Brinas is work­ing in our Cen­tral Spec­i­men team at West­mead Hos­pi­tal in Sydney’s west and sees the trainee­ship as an impor­tant step­ping stone in his career.

“I was hit by a car when I was 9 years old and have a trau­mat­ic brain injury that means I have trou­ble with body func­tion on my left side. I find it hard to stand or walk for long peri­ods of time,” he said.

“This has made it hard to hold down a job. This is the first job I’ve seen adver­tised where peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties were encour­aged to apply and I’m real­ly grate­ful this oppor­tu­ni­ty has come along.

“This trainee­ship has been great because I am able to sit and work at a com­put­er doing data entry for most of the time. The team at West­mead lab­o­ra­to­ry are very sup­port­ive and friend­ly and I am very hap­py to be work­ing in pathology.”

Mari­am Wadie is based at NSW Health Pathology’s Foren­sic Med­i­cine Ser­vice at Lid­combe com­plet­ing a trainee­ship in Health Admin­is­tra­tion. Mariam’s role includes work­ing at recep­tion at the Foren­sic Med­i­cine and Coro­ners Court Com­plex at Lid­combe, where she assists fam­i­lies who are attend­ing to view their loved one.

She says the expe­ri­ence has encour­aged her to fur­ther her studies.

“This trainee­ship helps me expand on exist­ing skills obtained from pre­vi­ous work expe­ri­ence and opens doors of oppor­tu­ni­ty as it is an entry into dif­fer­ent career paths,” Mari­am said.

“Whilst work­ing at Foren­sic Med­i­cine, par­tic­u­lar­ly as a recep­tion­ist, I have gained the con­fi­dence to make and answer phone calls and deal with dif­fer­ent types of peo­ple, which is a skill I did not have pri­or to this traineeship.

“I’ve been inspired by the amaz­ing Foren­sic Med­i­cine Social Work team in their approach and deal­ing with dis­tressed fam­i­lies. They are a great help and sup­port to those in need and in see­ing their work, I am inspired to be able to pro­vide that same sup­port for fam­i­lies. I can see myself tak­ing on the study of social work.”

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy is excit­ed to be help­ing to kick­start the careers of these incred­i­ble young peo­ple and our oth­er 17 trainees work­ing at our sites across the state and we’re look­ing for­ward to wel­com­ing a new cohort of trainees in the near future.