Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 5 August I was fortunate to attend the Prince of Wales Hospital in our community to celebrate the golden jubilee of the first kidney transplant in New South Wales. This was performed at the Prince Henry Hospital in Little Bay in my electorate in 1965. The Department of Nephrology was established at the Prince Henry Hospital in 1962 and moved to Randwick to join the Prince of Wales Hospital and Sydney Children's Hospital in 1998. It is now the longest continuously active kidney transplant service in NSW. Throughout its 50-year history, the Department of Nephrology has performed some world and national firsts, including the first successful kidney transplant on a baby in the world in 1967. Considering that the previous 10 attempts throughout the world had failed and resulted in the death of the baby, this was a ground-breaking medical achievement. It performed the first live donor adult kidney transplant in Australia in 1967. In 1968, the first baby was born in Australia to a woman with a kidney transplant. In 2013, the Sydney Children's Hospital conducted the world's first adult-to-child kidney transplant with an unmatched blood type.

Together, the departments of nephrology at the Prince of Wales Hospital and the Sydney Children's Hospital have performed 1,400 kidney transplants. They have saved many lives. I wish to pay tribute to the medical staff over the last 50 years who have been involved in this wonderful, groundbreaking medical research and performance.