THE morning Dr Sandra Deveridge was due to start as the director of the Newcastle blood service, she was sitting on the beach, reading the Newcastle Herald.
It was January 2, 1984, and the headline read: Hepatitis B epidemic strikes Hunter Hospitals.
"I clearly remember it. It was before work, on my first day, and I read that headline and thought, 'Oh my god, what have I gotten myself in for?'," Dr Deveridge laughed.
Around the same time, it was confirmed that HIV could be spread by blood transfusion, and more stringent testing and donor exclusions were put in place to protect the blood supply.
The now retired clinical haematologist was the director of the Newcastle blood bank until 1987. On Saturday, she will be speaking about the early history of the service at the annual Newcastle Healthcare Heritage Symposium at Souths Leagues Club in Merewether.
The event aims to showcase stories of the region's healthcare past, as told by local health professionals and academics.
"The blood transfusion service, when it was first started in 1941, was part of Royal Newcastle Hospital - it wasn't part of the Red Cross transfusion service, initially," she said. "Like a lot of things, war often stimulates a lot of changes, and one of the things that happened during World War II was that it was decided to set up a national blood service, and Newcastle was one of the major cities to set up one. In those days, we didn't have banked blood. It wasn't until Dr Peter Henry came in as the foundation director of the blood bank in 1947 that things changed, and we started to have blood stored in bottles."
Dr Deveridge said advances in medical science meant that more and more blood was needed locally.
"The blood transfusion service really underpins a lot of the clinical services provided in a modern hospital," she said.
Dr Ross Kerridge, a John Hunter Hospital anesthetist and organiser of the Newcastle Healthcare Heritage Symposium, said the event would also have sessions about the Stockton Centre, the Hunter's Great War nurses, and the Spanish flu epidemic in Newcastle in 1919.
