Timor-Leste, 640km north-west of Darwin, is one of the world’s newest countries, blessed with cultural and natural riches. The long struggle that culminated in independence from Indonesia in 2002 has, however, resulted in a range of challenges for the young nation, including damaged infrastructure and substantial public health issues.

There are currently around 500 Australians and New Zealanders living in Timor-Leste to help with reconstruction and stability: soldiers, civilians and federal police. In order for them to be in the best position to deliver positive outcomes for the Timorese, these Australian workers’ healthcare needs must be met.

Enter Aspen Medical. The Canberra-based healthcare company is a world leader in medical problem solving. “When we were awarded the contract for Timor-Leste, we needed to provide all the people and equipment to run a level 3 hospital,” says Aspen’s managing director, Glenn Keys. “And it had to be fast. We worked to a six-week deadline to be up and running.”

When Keys says “all the people and equipment”, he’s not exaggerating. Aspen, through prime contractor Toll, supply the Australian Defence Force in Timor-Leste with all clinical and associated medical staff, including surgeons, anaesthetists, paramedics, critical care nurses and radiologists. Aspen’s two-bed trauma hospital, equipped and ready for almost any emergency, needs pharmaceuticals, consumables and blood. “It was an unbelievable task,” says Keys.
“It was Herculean.” And that impossible six-week deadline? “We were ready in four and a half,”
he says.

The Aspen Medical story seems a classic tale of a smart, entrepreneurial company making good on the world stage: projects like the successful Timor-Leste operation have seen the company that began in 2003 reach a turnover of over AU$S85 million in 2011. But it’s also a story of two best friends combining their strengths and shared ambitions. “Andrew and I have been best mates since high school,” says Keys of co-founder Dr Andrew Walker. 

Both Keys and Walker have military backgrounds, so Aspen’s association with the ADF seems logical – but that’s not where the company began. “I’d been visiting England when Tony Blair was completely restructuring the way health services were being delivered,” says Keys. “I could see that health management needed an entirely new outlook.” Keys, a former Australian Army flight test engineer, had the project management and logistical skills to manage the delivery and Walker, a former army doctor who owned 16 medical clinics around Australia, had the clinical experience and expertise. Together they proved a formidable combination.

While Aspen has earned a reputation for excellence of care in challenging environments, some of their earliest projects weren’t in developing nations. “One of our first contracts was in the UK,” Keys says. Aspen was contracted to completely review orthopaedic surgery in England, for the UK National Health Service. Following that, the company worked on a problem that persists in hospitals everywhere: queues for elective surgery that have grown out of control.

“We were hired to clear surgical waiting lists in England,” Keys says. “We performed 5,000 hip and knee replacements, 7,000 minor orthopaedic procedures and 5,000 outpatient appointments in 12 months.” In a separate project, Aspen Medical cleared a two-year waiting list for cataract surgery in Northern Ireland in two weeks. “That meant that 200 people who’d been waiting for a 20-minute procedure could see for Christmas,” Keys says. Aspen’s base in Canberra has proved no disincentive for overseas clients. “For that project, the client first contacted me on the weekend and asked if I could meet them in Northern Ireland on Monday. So I was in Northern Ireland on Monday.”

From 100 staff running the National Ambulance Company in the United Arab Emirates, to providing one nurse to service a mine site in outback Queensland, every contract has its own challenges. Keys believes a key element of success is the project team: “We have terrific project managers on the ground in the Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, the United Kingdom and the Middle East.”

Some of those project staff have grown into other roles within the company. director of operations Matt Hughes, a registered nurse, began with Aspen in 2004 as part of the aeromedical evacuation team. In Hughes’s view, one of Aspen’s most interesting contracts has been its work in the Solomon Islands providing health services to the Australian Federal Police, Australian Defence Force members and Australian government employees. “We’ve been there since 2004 with around 40 staff,” Hughes says. “We provide primary health care, emergency care, pathology, radiology, dentistry, surgery, ambulances, environmental health and aeromedical evacuation.”

The scale of the Solomons' operation was apparent from the beginning. “When we were tendering for the business, we made a day-long presentation outlining our solution,” Keys says. The question was then asked: had Aspen Medical managed a project of a similar scale before? A reasonable query, and Keys’ honest answer was no. “But no one had,” he says. "Nobody had pulled together all the different components to deliver a complete remote healthcare solution in such a remote location to Australian healthcare standards."

The Solomon Islands project is also an example of the way the company works with local communities. “We employ quite a few locals in the Solomons,” says Hughes. “Administrators, drivers and general duties staff. In some areas, we’ve also trained our locally employed staff to provide elements of the environmental health service.” These services include mosquito control for malaria and food and water testing. “We work hard at community engagement and have very good local connections.”

While Hughes stresses that “no nurse’s job is average”, he’s aware that Aspen’s worldwide focus makes his work different from most. “[It’s] an incredibly exciting company to be a part of,” he says. “It doesn’t come without its challenges, but the excitement factor, from a personal perspective – it’s been an amazing ride.” These challenges include finding unique solutions for individual problems. In a world of mass-produced services, there is no room for a cookie-cutter approach. “We are providing very high quality services in all kinds of different locations,” Hughes says. “There’s not much we wouldn’t tackle. We always think, how are we going to do this?”

Keys agrees: there’s only one criterion that leads to Aspen turning down contracts. “We do independent security assessments to make sure each and every project is safe for our staff,” he says. “That’s the overriding factor.”

It’s this attitude that ensures a bright future. The company’s most recent expansions have been to Canada and Papua New Guinea, in 2011. “The United Arab Emirates and the rest of the Middle East will continue to be growth areas for us,” Keys says. “We’ve just signed our first major contract with the Defence Department in the UK, and another with one of the major US state hospitals. I also think the resource sector will continue to be a key market for Aspen in the future.”

 While Keys is proud of every project undertaken, the hospital in Timor-Leste holds a special place in the company’s history. On the 11 February, 2008, while returning to his official residence outside Dili from his early-morning jog, President José Ramos-Horta was critically wounded in an assassination attempt. The Nobel Laureate was shot several times in the chest and back.

“He was ‘medevaced’ into our facility and our trauma team provided the immediate life-saving surgical intervention. We stabilised him to a point where it was possible to move him to Darwin,’ Keys says. ‘We had the president in our care for around six hours. Back here at the office in Canberra,
it felt like we held our breath the entire time.”

Ramos-Horta recovered well from the attack and the Aspen Medical staff were not forgotten. The president awarded the staff who saved his life the prestigious Timor-Leste Solidarity Medal, the first time it has been presented to non-service personnel.

“Aspen has a job because quality medical staff are hard to find,” Glenn Keys says. “We have 500 staff worldwide. We don’t just make sure they’re clinically credentialled – we also check they’re socially credentialled. They’re the right people with the right skills and the right personalities.”

Keys’ ‘right people’ are part of the reason for Aspen Medical’s astonishing success. “I remember our first Christmas party. It was around my dining room table,” Keys says. “For Christmas 2011 it was a challenge to find a venue big enough for all of us. There are times when I wander around the office and I can’t believe all of this is here.”