- Published:
- Thursday 2 June 2016
Premier Daniel Andrews today visited the Boston Children’s Hospital as part of his official US visit, announcing a new partnership with Victoria’s Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.
As two of the world’s leading children’s hospitals, the Boston and Royal Children’s Hospitals have strong reputations for academic and medical excellence. The formal agreement will create opportunities for clinical exchange programs, fellowships and joint research to set new global benchmarks for paediatric care.
Meeting young patients and their families, the Premier presented more than 100 Australian-made toy koalas and kangaroos as gifts for children being cared for at the hospital.
The Premier also joined Boston Children’s Hospital President and CEO Sandra Fenwick for a tour of the Zebrafish Lab, a flagship stem cell and genomics research facility and a simulation training centre for nurses and interns.
In addition to the agreement between the Children’s Hospitals, the Premier today announced major medical partnerships between Melbourne and Boston health institutions, including:
- Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
- Melbourne Genomics Health Alliance and Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
- Royal Melbourne Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital
The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is a Harvard affiliated Teaching Hospital and one of America’s designated National Cancer Institutes. It’s a world leading hospital for paediatric specialist care, together with the Boston Children’s Hospital.
The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Dana-Farber will work together to strengthen both institutions’ expertise in cancer treatment and collaborative research.
This is the first time these eight world-leading institutions from Melbourne and Boston have come together to form a co-ordinated approach to international partnerships.
Boston and Melbourne have been sister-cities since 1985.
Quotes attributable to Premier Daniel Andrews
“Victoria has some of the world’s best researchers, scientists hospitals and research institutes – all making life changing discoveries for Victorians, Australians, and people around the world.”
“For the first time ever these world-leading institutions have come together to form collaborative approach to research, putting themselves at the forefront of driving healthcare innovation.”
“This partnership between Melbourne and Boston combines the best research, the best technology and the best minds all in an effort to save lives – and there’s nothing more important than that.”