Delta Goodrem tours the construction of the Kinghorn Cancer Centre

WHEN Delta Goodrem was diagnosed with cancer at just 18, she needed more than love and support to survive Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Goodrem said she found it in people she calls “angels” – the doctors and nurses from St Vincents Hospital plus the researchers who tirelessly look for answers to all forms of cancer, which affects one in three Australian families.

The singer she wore a fluoroscent vest and hard-hat to inspect a breakthrough 11-storey medical centre being built in Darlinghurst, which will customize patient treatment instead of the one-drug-fits-all approach which doesn’t always work.

She is now the ambassador of the new Kinghorn Centre.

“I wanted to be the patron of this centre and was honoured when asked,” she told assembled staff and builders at the joint Garvan Institute and St Vincent’s Hospital project which opens in June.

“It’s something so phenomenal and evolutionary, and the fact we will have such an amazing and incredible facility here in Sydney is so important to me.

“To have such a personal connection, and fact that the actual centre is about personalised medicine is truly incredible.”

Her cancer doctor John Moore said the singer has yearly check-ups eight years after diagnosis and that her support was vital.

“It’s important because she has had a personal journey through cancer, and that’s the focus of this centre,” he said.

“You can’t get a better ambassador who has pushed through cancer and been so brave, considering the public profile she has.”

Kinghorn Cancer Centre – November 30

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