Real Life

How Chris O’Brien’s vision became a reality

How Chris O'Brien's vision became a reality

Professor Chris O'Brien and his wife Gail.

What began as an ambitious plan to transform cancer care, by creating an integrated and patient-focused centre of excellence has now become a reality, with the newly opened, state-of-the-art Chris O’Brien Lifehouse.

“It is about nine years since Chris, as the director of the Sydney Cancer Centre at RPA had the initial conversations with the Federal Health Minister about the need for a new organisational approach to cancer care in this country,” says Gail O’Brien, wife of the late Professor Chris O’Brien.

In 2003 Professor O’Brien had a vision for transforming cancer patient care in Australia. While working in the United States, Chris had seen how comprehensive cancer centres, integrating research and treatment, had improved patient outcomes and transformed the experience of the patient. It was for this vision for an integrated cancer centre in Sydney that he continued to crusade until his death in June, 2009.

Chris O’Brien laid out his vision for the facility when he said, six weeks before his death, “We will seek nothing less than the achievement of world class benchmarks in treatment and research outcomes and also safety and quality.”

As Gail says, Chris’ watchwords were “discovery, innovation, excellence, and leading edge clinical care” and he emphasised that the whole place should “burn on discovery”.

“My husband Chris called the building Lifehouse because as a surgeon and a humanitarian he knew illness and death are part of life itself and this will be the house of life,” says Gail.

“It has been an arduous journey bringing together an enormous number of dedicated and passionate people from all walks of life, working together for a noble cause,” she says.

In Professor Chris O’Brien’s own words “if you have a critical mass of people, with a unity of purpose then you must be successful.”

With the help of donations, the newly opened Chris O’Brien Lifehouse in Sydney’s Camperdown aims to improve the quality of life for cancer patients and their families by bringing together all the elements of cancer research, medical treatment and complementary therapies, as well as support and sanctuary all under the one roof.

To donate a gift for a patient at Lifehouse visit www.lifehousewarming.com.au

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