Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Foundation Research Grants Awards Ceremony

Dr Kim Forrester, Deputy Chair, Metro North Hospital and Health Service Board; our recently appointed Foundation Chairman, Mrs Leona Murphy; other distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen.                  

As Governor and Patron, I am delighted to participate in my third RBWH Foundation Research Award Grants Ceremony.

Taken in isolation, each of these three ceremonies has been highly impressive. But with each ceremony, the broader picture I see of the scope and topicality of research at this hospital becomes even more compelling.

Once again this year, the technical terms used in describing the research projects may perplex the layperson, but the medical conditions to which the projects are directed are only too familiar.

The scope is enormous, from cancer to kidney disease, from mental illness to the management of chronic pain, from conditions affecting neonates to those affecting the aged.      

Once again this year, the range of projects being funded, and the range of other awards being presented, illustrate how deeply the drive to improve diagnosis, treatment, clinical care and quality of life for patients is embedded in the DNA of this iconic institution.   

In the year of the RBWH’s 150^th anniversary, we are reminded that this ethos is not newly-minted, but developed over many decades.  And we are reminded that the medical professionals in this institution have long played a pivotal role in tending to the health and well-being of Queenslanders.   

I congratulate all of this year’s grant awardees and I look forward to presenting their awards – all thirty eight of them! – shortly.    

We all hope that your hard work is rewarded. We hope that the enhanced knowledge and improvements in medical care you seek from your research, change lives for the better in Queensland and much further afield. 

As Patron, I thank the RBWH Foundation for its energetic fund-raising activities. 

I thank the Research Advisory Committee for taking on the difficult task of selecting projects from a large field of worthy applicants.   

I thank also the many generous individuals and organisation in the public and private sector for supporting the work of the RBWH, in particular the current members of the RBWH’s very own Royal Family, and those new members we welcome today.

And I reiterate my congratulations and thanks to the RBWH for its century and half of marvellous service to the people of Queensland.

Thank you.