NSW Health Pathology’s (NSWHP) Public Health Pathology Project Officer, Vishal Ahuja and his team, is providing expert support in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I am the project officer in NSW Health Pathology’s (NSWHP) Public Health Pathology statewide service. The service provides direction on laboratory testing for disease outbreaks, responses to emerging diseases, supporting emergency preparedness and spreading awareness on public health matters.
I am involved in co-ordinating multiple public health pathology projects running concurrently and prioritising the tasks. As part of my day-to-day job, I liaise with various stakeholders from NSW Ministry of Health, local health districts, clinicians, NSWHP laboratory staff and microbiologists, ICT and the NSWHP Incident Management Team. It is all about relation building, teamwork and helping each other to accomplish common goals for NSW Health.
Currently, my work revolves around COVID-19 testing. I assist Professor Dominic Dwyer, Public Health Pathology Director, to coordinate COVID-19 testing conducted by NSWHP laboratories.
On day one of testing, when COVID-19 first broke, we tested four patients at one laboratory and now we have over 35 NSWHP laboratories conducting several thousand tests every day. We also evaluate emerging test methods and technologies available for COVID-19 diagnosis.
We work as a close-knit team to make the COVID-19 testing and reporting process more efficient and I am the link between the COVID-19 testing laboratories staff, ICT teams, NSWHP executives in the Incident Management Team and Ministry of Health COVID-19 response teams. I ensure we capture all the COVID-19 testing performed by NSWHP laboratories and circulate the data to various stakeholders.
My background is as a scientist in the microbiology reference laboratories (overseas and NSWHP-ICPMR, Westmead). I was involved with the development of Ebola testing assays during the preparedness at the time of the West African Ebola outbreak, but nothing of this scale. Each day brings new learnings for me and I am thankful to the team members with whom I work.
We have all learnt, and continue to learn, many valuable lessons in tackling this pandemic. My biggest learning is you can never stand still while responding to a pandemic as the situation can evolve rapidly on the public health front. You must think ahead of what might happen and get ready for that. Teamwork is crucial.
Outside of my workplace, I maintain privacy and confidentiality of my work and direct family and friends to reliable resources of information, but I do assure them to have faith in science and that we will get through this.
I am so delighted to be part of this system responding to the pandemic, and would like to say thanks to all my colleagues for their ongoing efforts in the response to COVID-19. I would like to congratulate them, and remind them that all eyes are on us, so let’s keep up the good work!
Work challenges involve uncertainties about the future and it can be challenging as this is all unprecedented. The approach we have adopted from day one of the pandemic, is to have a collaborative and consultative attitude across multiple sites, which has worked well.
At home, at times I have been guilty of staying glued to my work laptop till late and on weekends. This has become better with time as I have improved my ability to prioritise tasks.
With two little children, I can’t recall many spare moments my children let me have. Although, I love to play lawn-tennis with my friends on weekends and play table-tennis in my garage with my family whenever we get an opportunity.
I migrated to Australia in 2008 with my wife (Monica) from northern India, as a skilled migrant. Prior to that, both of us were working at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, India. Despite all the excitement, it was a major decision to move to Australia with a young family, but a decision we are so glad we made.
I worked in the private pathology sector for the first year after I arrived in Sydney. I managed to get the position of Scientific Officer at NSWHP-ICPMR, Westmead in 2009 and Monica also grabbed an opportunity to work with NSWHP. I completed my Masters in Infectious Diseases Intelligence from UNSW in 2016-18 as a part-time student while working full-time. This got me more inclined to work in public health and I took the role of Project Officer with Public Health Pathology. We proudly call Australia our home and I feel honoured to be part of NSW Health. This is such a vibrant, hard-working and multicultural workforce which never fails to motivate me in my work.
Do you have a story to share about how you are involved with the COVID-19 response? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at info@health.nsw.gov.au.
