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Supporting communities across the Darling Downs and South Burnett, the Pathology Queensland Toowoomba Laboratory is celebrating its centenary. The Toowoomba laboratory was the fourth laboratory to be opened in Australia after Rabaul (Papua New Guinea), Bendigo and Townsville and commenced operation in December 1923.
Group Laboratory Manager, Neil Dawson said Toowoomba was the first inland laboratory to be set up in Queensland.
“We are one of the very few laboratories that have a hundred-year continuous operating history and quite a well-documented history at that.
“In the 1920’s, pathology laboratories were mainly set up in conjunction with quarantine ports to deal with containing epidemics and quarantining overseas ships.
“It was far from a laboratory like we’d recognise today, with just a few basic tests on offer, compare this to present day where the laboratory operates 24/7 and conducts thousands of tests each day.
“Pathology plays an essential role in healthcare, it’s commonly quoted that 70 per cent of clinical decisions made in the health system are made using pathology as the source of evidence,”
Group Laboratory Manager, Neil Dawson
For over 42 of those years, Scientist Warwick Anderson has been working in the Toowoomba laboratory.
“I started in December 1981. One of the biggest changes I’ve experienced over this time would be computerisation. Previously, everything was handwritten, and carbon copied. It was very hard to look back on patient files. You had to try to remember a patient’s history to know if a result was keeping with what they were last time.
“For the volume of work we complete, we certainly need technological advancements like the automation of machinery. Back when I started, every specimen went through your hands several times to get it all done.
“Turnaround times have improved, for example, a thyroid function test you had to wait a week for a result to come back, now it’s just a routine test, and you get results back within an hour or two.
“I wonder what it will be like in another 40 years,” Mr Anderson said.
The Pathology Queensland Toowoomba Laboratory operates out of the Toowoomba Hospital.