Pioneer in Telehealth, Dr Sabe Sabesan turns sights on improving workplace culture to improve patient care

A doctor who came to Australia as a refugee says growing up in a war zone taught him important lessons about wellbeing. Now he’s using his experience to improve healthcare in the bush.

Head oncologist at the Townsville Cancer Centre Professor Sabe Sabesan at Anzac Park. Picture: Evan Morgan

A Townsville doctor who grew up in a war-torn country is fighting for equitable healthcare access and improved workplace culture in an effort to empower regional Queenslanders.

Dr Sabe Sabesan is a medical oncologist at Icon Cancer Centre in Townsville, president elect of the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia and a professor at James Cook University.

A Sri Lankan refugee, he grew up during the Tamil and Sinhalese ethnic conflict in the 1970s, experiencing the death of one friend a month due to the violence, an experience he said taught him many important life lessons.

“I used to go to these protest marches so when they started firing at the crowd we all would lie down and my friend who was lying next to me actually died. So I saw that with my own eyes,” Dr Sabesan said.

“That’s the time that actually looking back made me realise wellbeing has nothing to do with money, buildings, luxuries, even in the middle of the war you can still be well.”

Townsville University Hospital senior medical oncologist Professor Sabe Sabesan. Picture: Shae Beplate.

“We were in the jungle quite a few times, and life goes on. You are still fed three meals, but the beauty was that people were sharing whatever they had and the elders were looking after kids.

“Kids were playing and teachers were still teaching under the tree … life just went on and I would say one of my best times was that. Not when I had Tvs, cars and fridges, that was the time.

After arriving in Australia in his early 20s, Dr Sabesan began studying medicine.

During his rural placement he said he was shocked to discover that people in rural and remote areas were living in similar conditions that he had been in his war-torn country.

“I was doing all the placements in rural South Australia plus Alice Springs and I realised the problem I had in Sri Lanka is exactly the same here – disparity.

“The only difference is that you don’t get killed here and you have money here. That’s it, that’s the only two things.”

Associate Prof Sabe Sabesan works in telehealth – video conferencing patients that live in rural and remote areas of Queensland. He is in front with behind him, Dr Abhishek Joshi (in dark check shirt L), Dr Zulfy Otty (blue shirt and red lanyard) and Dr Sean Brennan. .

“Now I realise it’s a worldwide problem, no one is immune to this.”

Seeing the inequality within communities in Australia, Dr Sabesan decided to focus on improving health care access for patients who were hours or days away from their closest major hospital and empowering patients.

“As soon as I finished (studying) I said I want to be in a regional town where I can contribute to rural and Indigenous people.

“We set up telehealth in 2005 long before governments even introduced it,” he said.

With a team, Dr Sabesan set up a makeshift telehealth network in the western corridor of the hospital and began the first trials that have since transformed the lives of patients across Queensland.

Dr Sabe Sabesan

His work towards building the pathways to equitable healthcare also allowed him to conduct work in improving hospital staff’s wellbeing by taking a step back and looking at the big picture of workplace culture.

“Culture is a foundation for wellbeing, engagement, productivity, how you look after people, patient centred care … all come from good culture,” he said.

“I said we need to actually develop a new definition that’s fit for contemporary systems.”

The COSA Council endorsed Dr Sabesan’s framework that defined a health workplace culture as “a way of functioning in which members from all layers and streams of the workforce; guided by organisational values and in partnership with consumers, enable and care for each other to achieve the organisational purpose, and in doing so, place wellbeing of the workforce and consumers at the centre”.

“For me I know wellbeing is about humans helping other humans to help humans. Coming from my war experience, it has nothing to do with money or resources, it’s purely that,” Dr Sabesan said.

He has since worked with JCU, the University of Queensland and delivered lectures around the world to share this model, with high hopes on transforming workplace culture to benefit consumers and patients.

Originally published as Pioneer in Telehealth, Dr Sabe Sabesan turns sights on improving workplace culture to improve patient care