Media Releases

Chris O'Brien

Chris O’Brien

Chris had a vision. The vision of  building a Comprehensive Cancer Centre, where the best care could be extended cancer patients in an environment where researchers and clinicians worked together to discover and translate new ways of diagnosing, treating and managing cancer patients.

In this vision he was single minded and engaged Federal and State Governments, the Sydney South West Area Health Service and the Centenary Institute, as well as clinicians and scientists. His success was not only evident in galvanising major support for the clinical arm of  his vision (now dubbed Life House) but also in partnering with my Institute, the Centenary Institute to get Federal funding and ultimately funding from the Australian Cancer Research Foundation towards a research building to complete and complement the clinical arm of a Comprehensive Cancer Centre.

Chris was also a magnificent human being. His empathy for his patients, his magnetism to engage supporters, his love for his family we all admired. But it is in adversity that the quality of a man shines; and it is in his illness that Chris’ strength, his generosity, his braveness and his far sightedness were all so evident, and indeed enriched and will keep on enriching our lives.

- Mathew Vadas, Executive Director Centenary Institute