Then, finally, there's the finance. And that’s where the issues start to get hard, because there’s never enough money to go around. I can remember when this building was being built and, I think, we [St Vincent’s] said we would provide either $250,000 or $350,000. There was an issue about who would fund any over-run. The system runs so lean, you don’t have another $100,000 you can pull out of somewhere. And being a not-for-profit group, the Sisters of Charity – I always thought they had a pot of gold until I was on the national Board and found it was no different from elsewhere – are running at the knife-edge. So that’s why you get some of the conflict building. And everyone wants to proceed, there’s no question of that, but how are you going to do it? Of course, the institute heads always want to have it now. You’d like to provide that, but there is a question of how far you can stretch yourself and still remain solvent. And then it comes to the national, and the Board, view which is that, at the end of the day, we can’t lose the lot or we can’t lose a big part of it. The campuses are absolutely essential. Often you have very brilliant and wonderful people doing things who just can’t understand why you can’t support them more. Given all of that, there’s something different about the St Vincent’s campuses. In the end, the [operating] theatres and the competent staff and their dedication has always impressed me as well beyond the call of duty – and Bernard O’Brien was a good example.

Laurie Muir: And the cooperation here is essential. We have built an asset on the property of the Sisters of Charity. We appreciate this. Initially I think we had a 25 year lease and maybe that's been extended. In going to outside donors to fund this, it was very awkward to explain this asset that we didn’t have control of, really, but there’s been a good element of understanding that has worked. We have remained very cooperative with the Sisters of Charity who have a beautiful asset and a worldwide reputation which they might not otherwise have had. I hope the partnership can continue between the Foundation – the fund-raiser – and the Sisters of Charity.

One limitation we always face when we seek Commonwealth funding is that approximately 70% of Australia's good medical research work is done here in Victoria. We’re all for seeing the research institutes in other states build up. But when it comes to a Federal system and a politician is seeking re-election, we quite often hear the view that the other states should be funded preferentially.

Geoff Renton: I think too, from my ten years here, some of the animosity if you wish on the campus has occurred due to the change in the way the Institute has worked. It was based on the English model where knowledge was published and made available to the world and the clinical work was immediately transferred to the patient. But in the last decade, largely because of government policy, the Hospital and University have become more like private enterprises focused on the bottom line. As a research institute we used to get quite good funding both from the Hospital and the University, and suddenly that all dried up. Next, we were pushed into having to patent inventions and enter a whole different area. All of that pressure, plus the need to expand – we went from free flaps to tissue engineering – being a small, unique, surgical research institute put a lot of pressure and strain on the Institute. In some affiliated organisations, we had different types of personalities coming in who I don't think understood the types of work that we were doing.

When I first arrived here I felt there was a family atmosphere in the Institute – as Ken said before – and in the Hospital too – and then all these other outside pressures came in that changed the environment. I'd like to think that things have settled down, particularly in the last couple of years. We’ve moved into the tissue engineering area, and the blood supply loop with the chamber is unique in the world, and the only thing that will hold us back is funding. If we can work in a cooperative sense with the University and the Hospital, we can again become a platform to take these new initiatives to the world.

Witness to the History of Australian Medicine