Over the last two decades, Aspen Medical, an Australian private company, has been selected by numerous State and Federal Australian governments as well as many international governments and companies, to provide critical emergency and remote location medical and health services. Aspen Medical is the only company in the world to be certified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an Emergency Medical Team for infectious disease outbreaks and trauma surgical operations.

We are immensely proud of the critical services and products we have delivered to protect and save tens of thousands of lives. We have provided important medical services in extremely difficult and challenging circumstances where normal government, corporate and NGO Charity resources have been stretched or unable to fully meet the many challenges and crises they faced. For example, at the peak of the Ebola crisis in West Africa in 2014/15, Aspen Medical was managing multiple Ebola Treatment Centres on behalf of the UK, United States, Australian and New Zealand governments across Liberia and Sierra Leone.

International Governments, including successive Australian and State governments from both sides of politics, in addition to NGOs, such as the UN and WHO, have for many years enlisted commercial providers to complement government and Not for Profit (NFP) health services in times of major emergencies. This does not mean that the few specialised healthcare providers working in the humanitarian space will supplant the charity or NFP healthcare providers. In fact, we (NGOs, Governments, Charity, NFPs and commercial organisations) are all needed to address the growing demand for healthcare in the humanitarian fields around the world. The COVID pandemic has shown the critical importance of working together in the past two years.

After a visit to the Australian Ebola Treatment Centre in early 2015, Senator Richard Di Natale commented (Senate Estimates, 26 February 2015): “I would like to begin by acknowledging the work that is being done by Aspen. While I was concerned about the awarding of the contract, having visited the facility, and seen the people involved I do want to put on record that the work that is being done now is of a very high quality. In terms of the level of support being offered, I was satisfied that it was of a very high standard. So, I want to put that on the record upfront.”

We believe that all organisations involved in this space should seek to confirm their Social Purpose and commitment to the highest standards of service delivery. Aspen Medical does this in several ways:

• Being accredited by the WHO (Aspen Medical is the only commercial entity accredited by the WHO as an Emergency Medical Team for infectious disease outbreaks and trauma surgical operations)
• Being externally and independently audited and certified as a Benefit Corporation (B Corp)
• Demonstrating social purpose
• Demonstrated commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
• Accreditation to a range of appropriate international operating standards.

We can reflect on customer satisfaction levels which are best demonstrated by our team achieving a 100% retention rate for all current customers that conducted formal procurements over the past year. We view this retention rate as a testimony to the high-quality service delivery, professional standards and positive customer and patient outcomes that our team delivered despite the challenges experienced during the pandemic.

Our entire Australian team members are proud of the work we did to assist the country at a time of incredible and mounting challenges during the pandemic. Aspen Medical secured unprecedented
volumes of essential Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for frontline line workers across the Australian health and hospital sectors, despite significant and mounting competition globally for these products as the pandemic evolved. We also provided emergency support to aged care work forces where both NFP and private aged operators lacked in-house infection prevention and control (IPC) capabilities or were unable to maintain safe staffing levels.

The pandemic created an unprecedented set of circumstances in the health sector and across global and domestic supply chains. Under these conditions the Federal Government used numerous Australian companies, including Aspen Medical, to respond to the national demand for PPE. This urgent demand was exacerbated by the fact that, especially in the early months, no one understood what the transmission rate or fatality rate would be, no vaccine yet existed, and the time needed to develop a vaccine was unknown. Against this complex background, it is unlikely that any company, or country, has ever needed to quickly secure and deliver PPE supplies on the scale that was required.

In relation to our pandemic work in the aged care sector, our team has proudly provided support to 415 Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs) across Australia and provided more than 65,000 hours of service at these facilities to our most vulnerable citizens.

We note that the tragic events at St Basil’s aged care home in Melbourne have rightly been the subject of concern for many, especially the impacted families. Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of all those residents impacted by the pandemic. It should be understood that Aspen Medical was one of more than 20 healthcare providers to St Basil’s and was never responsible for managing the facility, nor engaged to provide a specific number of staff. The tragic outbreak at St Basil’s has been examined in detail by an independent review commissioned by the Commonwealth, and conducted by Professor Lyn Gilbert AO and Adjunct Professor Alan Lilly. The independent review praised the efforts, skills, and experience of Aspen Medical Clinical First Responders (CFRs). This independent review made no adverse findings against Aspen Medical in relation to our role at St Basil’s. We note that a coronial inquest is currently being conducted and its findings are expected later this year.

We are grateful to our team, and all healthcare and aged care professionals, for putting themselves in challenging and highly demanding situations day after day to assist the most vulnerable in Australia during this extraordinary time. Their dedication and bravery have been an inspiration to us all.

ENDS