1985 – it was the year that Madonna, Wham and a-ha dominated the music charts, Uluru was finally handed back to its traditional owners, and everyone went to the movies to watch Back to the Future. But it also marked a future-defining moment for Cabrini, with the opening of the hospital’s Open Heart Surgery Unit at Cabrini Malvern.

Since then, 40 years ago to the month, more than 17,000 open heart procedures have taken place in the Unit, comprising coronary bypass, valve replacement and aortic surgeries, and thousands of thoracic cases.

The opening was a significant milestone in the hospital’s history, and one that required significant change ahead of its launch, cardiothoracic surgeon Mr Gil Shardey said.

“There were many months of planning,” he said. “And there were many people involved. The first thing that happened was to set up a cardiology department – without that you can’t have surgery.”

Peter Habersberger and Frank Panetta established cardiology at Cabrini, and then the next step was for Eric Cooper to set up the surgical program. Geoff Parkin set up the Cabrini Intensive Care Unit and James Mcmillan set up the Perfusion Department, bringing the perfusion practices over from The Alfred.

The ICU allowed for all types of major surgery, including neurosurgery and gastro-intestinal operations to be performed, converting Cabrini Malvern into a Class-A hospital.

“The anaesthetic team came from The Alfred too,” Mr Shardey said. “We reproduced the set-up from The Alfred.”

Mr Shardey performed the second open heart surgery on day one of the Unit’s opening, with anaesthetist Dr Julie Walker. Mr Cooper led the first case earlier that morning, with Dr Ken Sleeman giving the anaesthetic. Theatre technicians George Morel and Mick Tutins, who are both still working as theatre techs at Cabrini, were also in theatre that day, with nurses Bronwyn Taylor, Judith Knight and perfusionist James McMillan.

It was very exciting,” George, who started with Cabrini in 1977 said. “I was there for the first one and am still here. I’ve seen things change a bit over the 40 years of heart surgery, but the basics are still the same.”

Mick, who has been with Cabrini for 45 years, recalls the feeling of being part of something new and exciting.

“It was an interesting time being part of something new and I was amazed what we could do to a human being,” he said. “They cut the chest open, they basically stop the heart and operate, and in the end, not only is the human being still alive, but they’re better off for the surgery – for what these surgeons have done.

“I’m still amazed by what goes on in surgery, and that’s what keeps me here.”

The Cabrini Malvern Open Heart Surgery Unit grew out of a demand for private hospital heart procedures back in the 1980s, Dr Walker said.

“The Alfred surgeons had to cross the river to do their private work,” Dr Walker said. “Cabrini was on the right side of the river so the idea was that the Alfred private work would be serviced out of Cabrini, and then the Monash private work would follow, too,” Dr Walker said.

“We started out with only one theatre, with one cardiothoracic surgeon allocated to each day of the week, and then we grew.

“We were a very tight-knit team, and the left hand always knew what the right hand was doing.”

Michael McDonald, Perfusion Services Team Lead, said the Unit quickly grew.

“We originally had Theatre G, but we ended up switching to the name to Theatre 7 when the theatre names changed to numbers to avoid confusion between the sound of B, C, D, E and G,” Michael said.

“So, we had one theatre and would do three cases a day. We peaked at 650 cases one year. Back then, there was only one cardiac catheterisation lab, while today, there are two, with more under construction.”

Cabrini Malvern now runs cardiac cases out of two theatres. The Perfusion Service, led by Michael, who has operated the critical bypass machines for Cabrini since 1987, now has three bypass machines, to service cardiac surgery and standby for TAVI.

The patients we now operate on are quite different to those we cared for in the early days, Michael said.

“Patient demographics have changed,” he said. “Our bypass patients are much older than they were, with many of them having already had stenting or surgery, so they come to us later. On average, they’re probably a good 10 years older now than patients tended to be when the unit first started.

“Now, we operate on patients who back then would’ve been considered inoperable, and we have better results than we had 40 years ago. Our patients are basically older, sicker, and have more comorbidities, but they do much better.”

As part of the proposed Cabrini Next Era Project, Cabrini will add another five operating theatres, a new 32-bed cardiology ward, plus an additional cardiac catheterisation lab at Cabrini Malvern, increasing our cardiology and cardiac surgical capacity for the Cabrini community for the next 40 years.

Read about Cabrini’s Cardiac Services