CMRI Hosts Prime Minister
Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) hosted Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his wife, Therese Rein, on Sunday 18 August, 2013. Also present were Tanya Plibersek, Federal Minister for Health & Minister for Medical Research, Chris Bowen, Treasurer, David Bradbury, Assistant Treasurer, Ed Husic, Member for Chifley, and Julie Owens, Member for Parramatta. As part of his re-election campaign, Mr Rudd announced a commitment of $10 million towards CMRI’s Stage 1 redevelopment, as well as money for other building projects in the area, including upgrades to Westmead Hospital, which hasn’t received federal money since 1978. Former state minister, Virginia Judge, is leading CMRI’s campaign to fund a fivestage redevelopment of its facilities in order to quadruple the number of researchers at CMRI over the next 10 years. She says, “Expanding our strengths in medical research needs to be a priority for all political parties.” CMRI’s Director Professor Roger Reddel escorted the Prime Minister on a tour of CMRI’s facilities. The PM met with researchers and PhD students who are working to develop new technologies and better treatments for a range of diseases, including cancer and epilepsy. Afterwards, Rudd explained the importance of CMRI’s world-leading work on telomerase and cancer to the media gathered for Sunday’s press conference. “It has been terrific spending some time here this morning, seeing the excellent work being done,” said the Prime Minister. “For me it is always inspiring because you see first-class talent, which is represented by the young women here behind us, who have been just so extraordinarily good at the academic work they have done and working in such important clinical areas.”
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Westmead Alliance
On Thursday 6th June, 2013 the ‘Westmead Alliance’ was launched at CMRI. The Alliance includes Parramatta City Council, Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI), the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network, Westmead Private Hospital, University of Sydney, Westmead Millennium Institute (WMI), and the Western Sydney Local Health Service District, and its purpose is to improve the amenity of the Westmead area for patients and healthcare and research staff who work at Westmead. The area treats 1 million patients a year and employs 16,000 health professionals and researchers but is plagued with poor parking and transport issues, which CMRI Director, Professor Roger Reddel, said is costing the region dearly. “The Westmead Health and Medical Research Precinct has become one of the greatest in Australia, but, partly as a result of that, getting in and out of this area has become a major problem. “Our own staff have told us repeatedly that lack of suitable transport is a major drawback of working at Westmead, and one or two senior staff we were recruiting withdrew from consideration when they realised how difficult it is to find parking here.” The concept plan unveiled by the Alliance aims to increase parking near the Westmead hospitals and research centres and decrease traffic congestion through brid ge, road and intersection upgrades.
Mark Dado, COO, WMI; Annette Solman, Director of Nursing, Sydney Children’s Hospital Network; Stephen Leeder, Chair, Western Sydney Local Health District; Parramatta Lord Mayor John Chedid; Roger Reddel, Director, CMRI; Tim Daniel, CEO, Westmead Private Hospital