Media & Announcements

The Prince Charles Hospital’s Critical Care Research Group (CCRG) in partnership with medical research charity, The Common Good (an initiative of The Prince Charles Hospital Foundation) and Metro North Health have today unveiled the world-first project, ICU of the Future, redesigning the Intensive Care Unit environment at The Prince Charles Hospital to be more patient-centric and recovery focused.

Intensive Care Units can be daunting places for patients and their families with up to 75 per cent of ICU patients globally experiencing anxiety, depression, or other physical, cognitive, or psychological problems.

Kindergarten students are helping to keep Brisbane's elderly feeling young as part of a special program dubbed "Grandfriends".

The Common Good, is running their annual Giving Day on Wednesday to raise money to continue important programs like this and others.

The life-changing ageless play programme winning the hearts of Brisbane!

It’s hard to believe that only a few months ago these children didn’t know their Grandfriends. Now they see them regularly, as this small group of older community members. The Common Good Giving Day is help fund this programme with your help.

Donations matched on Giving Day for hospital playgroup

The Prince Charles Hospital Foundation - The Common Good is bringing together kindy kids and big kids at heat who would otherwise be facing a lonely road to recover and it seems the results are just what the doctor ordered.

Caboolture Hospital is preparing for its first Giving Day tomorrow (Wednesday) to raise vital funds for medical projects and programs.

Run by medical research charity The Common Good, Giving Day will also be held at The Prince Charles Hospital (TPCH), Chermside, where it started last year. All donations - which will be doubled by The Common Good’s matched givers - go to community-focused initiatives at TPCH and Caboolture Hospital. This year’s target programs help patients’ mobility, independence and social connection during and after their stay in hospital.

At Buying Time, donors can purchase one hour of medical research for $48 and choose where they want their impact to be directed.

The immersive philanthropic platform, called Buying Time, is transforming charitable giving by enabling donors to buy one hour of medical research, which has been quantified into a monetary value of $48. They can also choose whether they want to direct this time into researching heart disease, lung disease, mental health or dementia.

Golfers are being urged to sign-up and support Caboolture Hospital through this month’s Shine Lawyers Charity Golf Day. Registrations are open for business and organisations, with players of all abilities, to tee-up on Friday October 28 at Pacific Harbour Golf and Country Club on Bribie Island.

All proceeds raised go to The Common Good - a charity aligned with Caboolture Hospital – and the hospital’s first Giving Day in November. Shine Lawyers has a national foot print, but the golf fundraiser is being driven by its Caboolture office.

Brisbane-based charity The Common Good has launched a new tech platform, Buying Time, that it says will offer a long-term sustainable funding path to medical research.

The philanthropic platform, launched this week, is what Common Good chief executive Michael Hornby describes as a world first, enabling charitable donors to buy research hours which are then gifted to medical researchers. Hours raised will go directly to researchers tackling issues such as heart disease and mental health.

The Common Good, an initiative of the Prince Charles Hospital Foundation, this week launched Buying Time, a digital platform that will allow donors to buy research hours.

The Common Good chief executive Michael Hornby says the platform is believed to be a world first, allowing sufferers and their loved ones to buy specific hours of research into treatments for their own afflictions.

Brisbane based medical research charity The Common Good launches pioneering platform, Buying Time, to enable long term sustainable funding of life-saving medical research.

Medical research charity The Common Good (an initiative of The Prince Charles Hospital Foundation) is set to transform charitable giving in Australia with the launch of a ground-breaking new philanthropic platform, Buying Time. Charitable donors will, for the first time, be able to buy research hours, which in turn will give the gift of time to those who need it most.

Kudos to Brisbane-based ready-made meal company Lite n' Easy, which has donated $44,000 to dementia research through The Prince Charles Hospital Foundation's Common Good project.

Led by geriatrician and head of research of internal medicine Dr Eamonn Eeles, the technique applies a new isotype dye that maps the brain by identifying the footprint left by nerves talking to one another.

Lite N' Easy dietitian Ashleigh Jones says dementia is a disease close to the company's heart, given its products can help many elderly sufferers.

The iconic Strawberry Sundae return to the Ekka, funding medical discoveries with every scoop.

The iconic Ekka Strawberry Sundaes return to Brisbane for the Royal Queensland Show this August for the first time in two years as The Common Good (an initiative of The Prince Charles Hospital Foundation) serves over 120,000 ice creams in their flagship event to support medical research.

From Wednesday, August 6 to Sunday, August 14, The Common Good will serve up the delicious and iconic treats from five Ekka Strawberry Sundae stalls in the RNA Showgrounds with all the profits supporting life-changing medical research into heart disease, lung disease, mental health and dementia.

A world-first early detection technique is being developed at The Prince Charles Hospital that researchers hope will identify dementia in patients years earlier, resulting in more personal and effective care.

Led by Geriatrician and Head of Research of Internal Medicine, Dr Eamonn Eeles, the technique applies a new isotope dye that makes maps the brain by identifying the footprint left by nerves talking to one another and so gives researchers, and doctors, unique information about how the brain is behaving.

Back for its third year, our strawberry and cream sour sensation – Strawberry Sundae Kisses – has returned and is bubbling away in our Brisbane Brewery, getting ready for an early August release.

Each year, proceeds from our Strawberry Sundae Kisses, sold exclusively from our Brisbane Brewery, are directed to The Common Good, the fundraising initiative of The Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane.

For the past two years, the legends of Southeast Queensland have absolutely got behind our delicious homage, with the brew selling out both years in a matter of weeks.

The Common Good has officially launched its partnership with Caboolture Hospital, an appeal to raise $100,000 and announced funding for seven research projects at the hospital

The organisation has been working with Caboolture and Kilcoy Hospitals and the Woodford Corrections health service for the past three years but wanted to get some runs on the board and traverse the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic before launching its first appeal.

The appeal aims to raise $100,000 for an incubator bed for critically ill new-born babies and to refurbish the children’s play area.

The Common Good, which has worked with The Prince Charles Hospital for about 30 years, is seeking support from local businesses and community leaders across the region with every dollar going to the appeal.

Michael Hornby said he is “surprised, humbled and not quite sure how to react” after being recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, which were announced last night.

The Albany Creek resident has been awarded an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for his “service to the community through a range of roles" with charities.

Over 30 years he has launched The Smith Family in Queensland, raised millions for Surf Life Savers, started an RSPCA animal care campus and founded the Wildlife Warriors at Australia Zoo.

He now raises funds for medical research as CEO of The Common Good at Prince Charles Hospital Foundation, Chermside, “meeting people who are alive because of the small, but essential, role we play”.

The Common Good are proud to partner with Lite n’ Easy for second year running.

The Common Good are proud to announce Lite n’ Easy – Australia’s favourite meal delivery service - have come on board as partners for a second year running. Last year Lite n’ Easy customers raised over $44,000.

This year they hope to raise $50,000 for life-saving and life-changing medical research time that supports The Common Good’s critical research areas; lung disease, heart disease, mental health, and dementia.

The Ekka's famous strawberry sundae, sales of which go to medical research charity The Common Good, will be available this year at the Ekka site in Bowen Hills.

The Common Good CEO Michael Hornby said the charity's biggest focus now was to encourage volunteers to return to the Ekka and help raise funds to improve health care.

"The biggest challenge is we rely heavily on volunteers, and a lot of volunteers we haven't seen for two years — that's about 2,000 people," he said.

"If you work for a business and want some team-building opportunities, there is no better way to do that than spending four hours together selling ice creams to kids."

It's the race that stops the river city!

Bikes replaced cars on the major arterials today, but it was for a good cause - raising money to help researchers make medical discoveries.

Everyone knows they will die one day.

But very few are told that unless someone else dies within a few weeks, then they will.

That was the shocking reality facing Brisbane double lung and heart transplant patient Kate Phillips, who was close to the end in a ward at Prince Charles Hospital until her phone rang at 1.15am.

It was the call that saved her life.

Craig Lowndes and Daryl Beattie will undertake a 500km, single-day motorcycle ride for charity in the mountains of South East Queensland next week.

The seven-time Bathurst 1000 winner and three-time 500cc world championship race winner will be joined by members of the business community on the inaugural Ride For Good, to raise money for medical research.

It has been organised by The Common Good, an initiative of Brisbane’s Prince Charles Hospital, to generate funds for research into heart disease, lung disease, mental health, and dementia; conditions that affect over 90 percent of the community.

On Wednesday 30 March, motorcycle enthusiasts, including three-time Supercar Championship winner and seven-time Bathurst Champion Craig Lowndes OAM and ex-500cc MotoGP Champion Daryl Beattie, will navigate through 500 kilometres of South-East Queensland’s most beautiful terrain to raise much needed funds for medical research.

The inaugural eight-hour Ride For Good, hosted by The Common Good (an initiative of The Prince Charles Hospital), will be raising money for vital medical research into heart disease, lung disease, mental health, and dementia, conditions that affect over 90% of the community.

A potential new saliva test can rapidly detect COVID-19 infection and may even indicate if a person is likely to become seriously unwell, research by QIMR Berghofer has shown.

The research confirms the saliva test can detect people with COVID-19 faster than a PCR test.

QIMR Berghofer Associate Professor Michelle Hill said the study offered valuable information on COVID-19 and its progression.

The research was jointly funded by QIMR Berghofer, Agilent Technologies and The Prince Charles Hospital Foundation, via The Common Good.

A world-first surgery in the USA has seen a pig's heart successfully transplanted into a 57-year old patient, partly thanks to a device developed in Brisbane which can extend the preservation time of donor organs.

Dr Bartley Griffith, the lead surgeon on the transplant team, had previously collaborated with the Critical Care Research Group (CCRG) at The Prince Charles Hospital, funded in part by The Common Good.

CCRG developed a hypothermic ex-vivo perfusion (HEVP) device, which preserved the heart and kept it infused with a special solution preventing a number of complications that arise when an organ is just put on ice for transport.

An informal network of the globe’s most brilliant medical minds has been exchanging ideas about how to best respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. All thanks to a team of Brisbane physicians, writes Cindy Wockner.

The Covid-19 Critical Care Consortium, Covid Critical, was born in Brisbane to help facilitate a global effort in the fight against the deadly and rapidly spreading virus.

From its headquarters at the Prince Charles Hospital, the consortium involves intensive care units at more than 380 hospitals around the world. It now contains a collection of 35 million pieces of data.

The Prince Charles Hospital Foundation is a charity which focuses on raising and distributing funds into the core areas of heart disease, lung disease, mental health, dementia and hospital innovation to help people live healthier for longer.

Through grants and public donations, The Prince Charles Hospital Foundation backs incredible researchers that are dedicated to making medical breakthroughs. The research we fund is focused on real outcomes and real impacts, taking medical discoveries from lab bench to bedsides. Every $48 that is donated means that researchers can continue working towards these breakthroughs.

The Prince Charles Hospital Foundation is a statutory authority and opportunities exist for two new Non-Executive Directors to join the Board.

A dedicated team at Brisbane's Prince Charles Hospital has collected COVID health data on critically ill patients across the globe.

The information will be used as Queensland borders open as well as assisting patients around the globe.

A limited-edition run of five-litre tubs of the Ekka’s iconic strawberry ice-cream will be available for purchase in time for Christmas.

The tubs are remaining stock after the Ekka was cancelled at the 11th hour this year, due to a COVID-19 outbreak.

The Common Good CEO Michael Hornby told Sofie Formica this run will be “the first and probably last time this will be available”.

Doctors at a Brisbane hospital are washing out the lungs of silicosis patients in an effort to stop the debilitating condition.

The procedure, being performed at Brisbane’s Prince Charles Hospital, is called a lung lavage, with the patient’s lungs rinsed out with warm salt water.

Researchers have found a potential world-first treatment for a deadly lung disease that has killed hundreds of tradies across the country.

Called silicosis, the condition is caused by the inhalation of silica dust, mainly from the cutting of manufactured stone, and was thought to be incurable.

But this year four tradies with mild silicosis appear to have recovered after undergoing a whole lung lavage or “lung washout” as part of a trial at The Prince Charles Hospital (TPCH) in Brisbane.