Emeritus Professor David Penington AC passed away on 6 January 2023. Professor Penington was one of Australia’s leading public health experts and a strong advocate of strategies to address HIV Aids and drug treatment amongst other public health issues. As part of his distinguished academic and public health career he was an early proponent of establishing needle exchanges and advocated for the establishment of safe injecting centres in Victoria. He was also a strong advocate of locally based, community managed, community health services.
Professor Penington was also one of the principle founders of the North Richmond Family Care Centre (later to be renamed the North Richmond Community Health Centre). In the early 1970’s Dr Penington was a medical practitioner in Richmond that supported the community on the newly established Langdon Park public housing estate, Victoria’s largest public housing estate. Together with other residents and community activists Dr Penington established the first committee of management to advocate for and guide the development of a community health centre to serve the needs of the local community. In 1974 their advocacy was successful and funding was received from the Commonwealth Government under the Whitlam Labour Government to establish the centre. This was a unique endeavor in that it was located on the grounds of the estate and therefore easily accessible to all and employed a team of multidisciplinary healthcare staff including General Practitioners. This model of healthcare had the benefits of not only providing clinical care but also addressed the broader social needs and aspirations of the community. Dr Penington and his colleagues’ foresight led to the establishment of this unique model of primary healthcare that is now the basis of community health programs across Australia. Its basis was underpinned by Dr Penington’s values of social justice, community engagement, equity and inclusion and support for marginalised communities. He clearly recognised the intrinsic value of this model to provide care to socially diverse multicultural communities. North Richmond Family Care Centre was the first community health service in Victoria to employ in-house interpreters as part of its core staffing complement.
Professor Penington took great interest in the plans for and progress of the Medically Supervised Injecting Room at NRCH, including visiting the staff during their training in the days before it opened in June 2018.
Since 1974 Dr Penington continued to actively support the work of the Centre and was its patron.
The North Richmond community extends its deepest condolences to Professor Penington’s family.
