Supporting innovations helping to shape healthcare in Melbourne’s west 

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – Plenary is backing innovative research projects to enhance healthcare in the western suburbs of Melbourne and empower the next generation of researchers.  

The $10,000 Plenary Health Innovation Grant, announced at the Western Health’s Research Week awards ceremony, was presented to Samantha Bates, Research Manager in Intensive Care. 

The grant will support Samantha’s LEANER (enteraL rathEr thAn iNtravenous Electrolyte Replacement) project, which aims to find out if giving phosphate and magnesium through a tube into the stomach is as safe, more sustainable for the environment, and more cost effective than giving intravenously.  

Now in its third year, the grant is part of Plenary Health’s five-year partnership with Western Health Foundation, aligning with the delivery of the New Footscray Hospital Project. 

Attending the Western Health Research Week Awards at Sunshine Hospital, Plenary Executive Director – Portfolio Delivery, Clare Shiell, presented this year’s Plenary Health Innovation Grant. 

“We would like to congratulate Samantha and wish her well with her project that aims to make a difference to critically unwell patients in Melbourne’s west. 

“We’re proud to continue our support of Western Health through sponsoring grants like these to ensure the great minds of Western Health have a chance to bring their research and ideas to the forefront and contribute to positive health outcomes,” Clare said.  

Western Health Research Program Director Bill Karanatsios said: “The Plenary Health Innovation Grant will help support Samantha during her PhD by providing funds to ensure that her project delivers on its objectives”.  

“The project will help answer a very important question that may save valuable healthcare resources and deliver a more sustainable and effective way of administering a very common intervention. This project has the potential to not only change local clinical practice but change global practice in how electrolyte replacement can be better administered”. 

Reflecting on receiving this grant, Samantha said: “We can’t do any of this without financial support to run the project and I’m exceptionally grateful to Plenary Health for supporting research with a funding grant. Together, we may be able to find a better solution that could potentially influence how we treat electrolyte levels in ICU patients both here at Western Health, and around the world”.     

Plenary Health’s overall partnership with Western Health via the Western Health Foundation is worth more than $300,000 over five years and supports staff research grants, as well as post graduate nursing scholarships in key clinical services, fundraising events and other in-kind support. 

The new Footscray Hospital, currently under construction on the corner of Ballarat and Geelong roads, is set to be completed in late 2025. 

It is being delivered by the Plenary Health consortium, in partnership with the Victorian Health Building Authority and Western Health.