The hospital has been an admirable beacon of healthcare excellence in Victoria, the heart of the sprawling community of Fitzroy and Carlton, for decades.
In the face of an ever-changing global landscape and growing demand for advanced medical services, St Vincent’s Private Hospital has realised the significant need to expand its hospital facilities, trying to further strengthen its role as the leading healthcare institution in the state while creating new job opportunities to boost the local economy.
The complexities and incomprehensibility of recent years have undoubtedly redefined our world.
From how we live day-to-day to what we consider necessary and important. Issues that particularly disrupted the health care sector, with its thousands of doctors, nurses and caregivers committed to the front lines of the pandemic.
“The time had come to look to the future,” said Don Pasquariello, an expert in finance and risk management with more than four decades of experience.
Pasquariello is an active part of the St Vincent’s Private Hospital Capital Campaign committee.
“Hospitals usually have an economic life of fifty years or so, and for St Vincent’s Hospital the opportunity had come to deliver better health care prospects to the next generation.”
Work has already begun on a new hospital building between Brunswick Street and Victoria Parade in Fitzroy, consisting of 12 floors to provide new oncology, maternity, surgery, cardiology, urology and intensive care units.
This is an ambitious $180 million project aiming serve an additional 20,000 patients a year.
There’s also a national campaign that intends to raise at least $20 million through the generosity of the community.
“We need great hospitals, facilities that function at their best and offer first-class services,” said Pasquariello.
“I feel honoured to be able to be part of such a campaign.
“When you look at a map of Melbourne, the Carlton and Fitzroy area certainly ranks first among the most iconic places, as well as being an area with a deep Italian character because of its large migrant community.
“The new building will be an exemplary development.”
A shot of St. Vincent's Hospital from 1950
Started way back in 1893 as a public hospital in Fitzroy, led by the Sisters of Charity group to serve Melbourne’s poor, St Vincent’s expanded dramatically until it opened its brand new private facilities in 1972.
It was nurse Fabian Elliott who brought to life the avant-garde vision of combining existing public wards with a large private building, facilitating collaboration among local health experts.
“For my family, St. Vincent’s Private Hospital has always been a landmark, a milestone,” Pasquariello recounted.
“And, as with most of the Italian migrant community, my parents - originally from Marsico Nuovo, in the province of Potenza in Basilicata - settled in Carlton in the 1950s, near that large hospital that was already a cornerstone of public and private health care in Melbourne at the time.”
For Pasquariello it is time “to give back what has been given to them for years by that hospital that has always been at the centre of Victoria’s migratory history”.
“I took part in the fundraising committee to say thank you, in some way,” he added.
His first direct contact with St. Vincent’s Private Hospital also came through his wife Tania Pasquariello, an orthopaedic physiotherapist at the hospital.
His awareness of the outstanding work of the medical staff and the excellence of its services convinced him to take part in the national campaign related to the development of a new building.
A maternity ward at St. Vincent's Hospital in 1950 (left) and the anticipated look of a room within the new maternity ward being built (right)
“We will continue to promote health equity by improving and meeting evolving medical needs,” he explained.
“I grew up surrounded by the values of family, love and mutual support passed down first by my Italian grandparents and then by my parents.
“St Vincent’s Private Hospital believes in that same network of ideals, and together we can build an immense legacy for the entire community.”
Every donation offered to the campaign will be tax-deductible, and the campaign’s major benefactors will become members of the St Vincent’s Foundation’s Victoria Donor Care Program, a program that will provide various non-medical benefits and a dedicated health pathway.
As part of the ambitious renovation project, the hospital is also offering a unique opportunity to rename wards, operating rooms and gardens after families who donate, “to leave an even more lasting impact”.
To participate in the campaign and fundraising efforts, you can contact Cameron Smith, director of St Vincent’s Private Hospital Capital Campaign at 0431 079 906 or by email or online.
