The Baird Institute is a registered company under Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (“Corporations Act”) and is taken to be registered in New South Wales. The day of commencement of registration is the 31st day of August 2001. The Baird Institute is a public company limited by guarantee and is registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (“ACNC”). As a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee, The Baird Institute is dedicated to compliance requirements that ensure they meet a range of state and federal legal obligations which underpin a code of conduct.
We are committed to the responsible administration and oversight of the donations we receive and accept through the generosity of donors past and present. The Board Charter obliges the directors of The Baird Institute to ensure best practice in corporate governance in matters including the compliance with applicable charitable fundraising legislation, acting at all times in good faith in the best interests of The Baird Institute to further its charitable purpose, management of conflicts of interest and ensuring the proper and responsible management of the financial affairs of The Baird Institute.
All donations (over $2) are tax-deductible and go towards:
- Educational fellowships
- Clinical trials and research projects
- Support for patients and their families
- The ongoing education of our nurses
- Training of surgeons
- Our international impact projects
- The development of surgical technology
More specifically, your money will contribute towards:
- Patient support groups for current and past heart and lung surgery patients
- Paying for MRI scans in our quest to determine the cause of aortic aneurysm disease
- Helping a researcher to investigate the genetic basis and find the gene responsible for killer aortic diseases and thus finding new therapies
- Helping researchers develop new models of valve replacement surgery to increase the chances of survival and also patient quality of life
- Funding research on ECMO support after people have had a cardiac arrest
- Researching new therapies to improve survival after cardiac arrest
- Helping fund research into better ways of performing heart and lung surgery through small incisions with the use of the most advanced robotic techniques
- Supporting the salary of a Clinical Trials nurse to run the clinical trials program which compares current therapies with the next best available therapies
- Funding the position of a research assistant to maintain a database and accompanying heart bio-bank to support international collaborative research
- A scholarship for a trainee cardiothoracic surgeon to complete an MPhil or a PhD and do life-saving research
- In Australia, more than 45,000 people die of cardiovascular disease each year – that is 1 every 12 minutes. It’s a fact that heart research costs millions of dollars.
- In Australia – diseases of the heart, lung and blood vessels kill more people than any other disease.
- These diseases can affect people of any age at any time – even babies and young children.
- Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of deaths in the world.
- Heart disease is the number 1 killer of women and is more deadly than all forms of cancer combined.
- Australian women are almost 3 times more likely to die of heart disease than breast cancer.
- 25% of Australians have 3 or more risk factors for heart disease.
- Lung cancer is the largest cause of cancer-related deaths in Australia.
- We save lives and improve patient outcomes for those patients facing heart or lung surgery.
- Valuable research into heart and lung disease is being done but little time or money is directed towards improvements in surgical techniques and surgical technology; these are our focus areas.
- We conduct research to improve surgical techniques and surgical technology.
- We team up with others to create game-changing technology and advances.
- We collect data and analyse both illness patterns and the effectiveness of our work.
- Our goal is to apply our discoveries from this research to the improvement of patient outcomes, quality of life, survival rates and hopefully a cure for patients, in addition to providing the highest standards of patient care.
- Improvements can include less intrusive procedures and techniques.
- We are currently working to advance the field of minimally invasive heart and lung surgery and the application of modern medical technology, to support the development of new surgical techniques.
- This includes working to develop new models of valve replacement surgery to increase the chances of survival and also patient quality of life.
- Some of our research attempts to understand why certain heart conditions develop (e.g. aortic aneurysms), so that we can predict and prevent them as well as attempting to avoid the passage of this condition to the next generation.
- Our research is “applied research” – i.e. research geared to solving a problem; where theory is applied to practice.
Find out more about our current projects and innovations here.
- We disseminate the results of our research widely to the medical and scientific community and the general publicthrough various scholarly publications and our newsletter.
- We run and participate in many clinical trials. (Clinical trials are research investigations for which people volunteer to test new treatments, interventions or tests as a means to prevent, detect, treat or manage various diseases or medical conditions)
- We conduct educational conferences for heart and lung nurses.
- We assist in the education of the next generation of heart surgeons to embody the ideals of Professor Douglas K Baird – science, surgery, sensitivity and skill
- We encourage undergraduate and postgraduate clinical and applied research, basic science training and education
