Upbeat into music
Rebecca Archer
Welcome back to another episode of The Remarkables podcast! This series is about highlighting remarkable stories of people who are making positive contributions to their communities – within Australia as well as around the world.
Today, we’re thrilled to welcome McGrath Foundation Ambassador and Director Tracy Bevan to the podcast. Tracy was best friends with Jane McGrath and helped establish the Foundation in 2005. She has been a Director since 2008.
Tracy now spends much of her time travelling across the country, raising awareness of the Foundation’s work and the critical role McGrath Cancer Care Nurses play in the community.
Welcome, Tracy!
Tracy Bevan
Thanks for having me.
Rebecca Archer
To kick off the episode, we're going to jump straight into a rapid-fire round. I'll ask you some questions at random where you can respond with just whatever comes to mind.
So, first of all, what's the most remarkable advice that you've ever received?
Tracy Bevan
The most remarkable advice I've ever received was when Jane and I first started the McGrath Foundation and we went to see the CEO of National Breast Cancer Foundation at the time, Sue Murray, and she said to us, how many staff do you have? And we said, ta da, it's us, and we were really proud that it was just Jane and I, we weren't spending any money on staff, and she said, oh well, that's good. And what's your mission is to ensure everyone has access to a breast care nurse where they live, and she says, oh well, you won't ever get there.
I was like rude, but what I understand now is she said, “Tracy, you really need to look at this as a business. You're a not for profit, but you need to look at this as a business, and if you intend to get as close to your mission as you possibly can, then you need to employ people and you need to, you know, bring in the right people, experts, and don't be afraid of paying them, and that is how you reach your mission.”
So that was golden. So naively Jane and I, you know, sat there thinking that this is the way that you run a not for profit, when obviously it's not.
Rebecca Archer
And Tracy, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Tracy Bevan
I wanted to be an actress. I'd always be the main role in any of the plays at school, I'd walk up and they go, because I always get the main part, and I remember being on the stage when I was very young and we were doing a play on The Beatles and I was being interviewed by a famous newsreader apparently in the UK and I just started ad-libbing. But then the whole school erupted and I saw my mother going, oh no. And I love that feeling of making people laugh and I love being somebody else.
So, I always wanted to be an actress and you know, sort of what I do now, you know, being on stage, as in it's not a stage but in front of an audience, I never get, I never get nervous.
Rebecca Archer
And lastly, for this rapid-fire round, what is one act of kindness that you think is really underrated?
Tracy Bevan
I've always taught my girls, you know, if you say you've got nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. I've always said if you think something nice, say it, no matter how small it can be, and you know, if I see somebody who looks good, I will make a point of saying, oh, excuse me, I think you look beautiful. I love that colour on you. I always do it. I don't stare around for anymore. I just always think a little random act of kindness… words could make the difference in someone's life.
Rebecca Archer
All right, so let's get down to the nitty gritty, Tracy. The McGrath Foundation is of course very well known across Australia, but for someone who might be discovering it for the very first time, what exactly does the organisation do?
Tracy Bevan
So, The McGrath Foundation – our mission is to ensure no one goes through cancer without the care of McGrath Cancer Care Nurse – but it wasn't always that.
Our mission, when we first started and the whole reason that The McGrath Foundation exists, is because my best friend Jane McGrath was diagnosed with breast cancer at 31 years old, and the impact on her life that Alison Szwajcer, her Breast Care Nurse had was the reason that Jane said, “Do you fancy starting a charity Trace? I want to make a difference for other families.” She said, “Will you do this with me?” I said, “Sure.” So that's the whole reason The McGrath Foundation exists. One woman's experience with her breast care nurse.
And for me, you know, obviously we lost Jane unfortunately in June 2008, but making a promise to her before she passed that regardless, until the day I see her again, I'll continue what she started, and it's about making sure that we place as many nurses as we can in communities right across Australia.
So, like Jane said, when she left her Breast Care Nurse, Alison, she could go home and be a mother, daughter, wife, friend and leave everything else at the hospital. So that's what we do. We support – now – patients going through any type of cancer.
Rebecca Archer
Was it not always a guarantee that every single person who was going through breast cancer treatment had access to a Breast Cancer Care Nurse?
Tracy Bevan
No. And that was when Jane…she met Alison…she was re-diagnosed.
She went through 1997 without a Breast Care Nurse, so didn't know what a breast cancer nurse was. When she was re-diagnosed and she met Alison, she then knew the difference of no nurse and having a nurse, but then when she did her research and she said, you know, the role of a nurse, and she said, “There's not very many Breast Care Nurses in the communities.”
And then for her, she said she wanted to place Breast Care Nurses in rural and regional Australia because knowing what she was going through and having access to Alison at St. George Hospital but then doing research that people in her. Her example was people in Northern Territory have to leave their families and travel to Melbourne or Adelaide for the same treatment to access a nurse.
That's when she said, “Oh no, we've got to do something about this Trace.” Did we think that we would be, you know, placing nurses all across Australia? No, we didn't. But, you know, at least we decided to make that step and do whatever we could.
Rebecca Archer
And I would imagine it's not a case of mission accomplished. You're still obviously working towards goals, but what are you most proud of in terms of milestones and achievements?
Tracy Bevan
Well, I'm very proud. As I said before Jane passed away, I looked into her beautiful, pale blue eyes I made a number of promises. That promise was continue what she started this Foundation. I was just her friend holding a hand along the way.
I knew it was something that I would give my life to and devote everything I could to, but did I think we'd ever reach our mission – the number was 250 Breast Care Nurses – which meant there was a Breast Cancer Nurse in the community that families could access. No, but we did, and we reached that mission end of 2024.
So, it's incredible that in such a short time – in 19 years from starting the Foundation – that we did actually reach our mission, and that mission, reaching that mission was what then drove us to then take that same equity of care and announce it on the 1st of January 2025, with Glenn and I at the Pink Test, that we're staking that same equity of care and now hoping to place all cancer nurses across Australia.
Rebecca Archer
Congratulations. That's huge. Well done. And I love that you haven't just stopped there, but you're building on it and striving for more!
And of course, last year you did celebrate 20 years of driving impact at The McGrath Foundation. How would you say the foundation has evolved over the years you've talked a little bit about – it was just you and Jane at the beginning – but what changes have come in that you look back now and go, I really just can't believe the growth?
Tracy Bevan
Oh, well, the obvious change is the amount of nurses that we now fund across Australia and that number is 343 McGrath Cancer Care Nurses.
Obviously, the majority of those are breast care nurses, but we now have a collective name of McGrath Cancer Care Nurses who specialise in breast, who specialise in all of the cancer, tumour streams.
So, the biggest thing is that we have 343, and also the biggest marker for me is that we've been able to help almost 170,000 Australian families, and for Jane, she started this to help one family and fund one nurse and she said, “I know that's so cliche, but we have to start somewhere.”
So, you know, to have the numbers that we do and to have the impact that we're having and now taking that same equity of care to all cancers, I know it's going to take a long time, Rebecca, I know that, but we've started; we've got 82 all cancer nurses.
You know, we only started on the 1st of January, 2025, so I'm really proud of that. But we've still got a huge job to do to take that same expert care to families diagnosed with any type of cancer.
Rebecca Archer
What exactly is it that the Cancer Care Nurses provide? So, when someone connects with a McGrath Foundation Nurse, firstly, what are they usually reaching out about and what do they get?
Tracy Bevan
So, a patient should be introduced to their nurse on diagnosis. She should be part of a multidisciplinary team, but if she's not, because as I said, we've not got all cancer or tumour streams supported by a McGrath Cancer Care Nurse yet, but she can then go to The McGrath Foundation website and we have a drop down box and you can put in your postcode and the nearest nurse will be there, but if we don't have a nurse for a different cancer stream, we will advise you where to go for that support, and it's usually the Cancer Council, but for us, it's about people having that same expert care, that continuous expert care, psychosocial, emotional, psychologically, but what's really different about our nurses is that they don't just support the patient; they're there for the whole family. Because as we know, a diagnosis of cancer doesn't just impact that one person. It has a ripple effect, and it impacts all those around. So, our nurse is there to support the whole family through that diagnosis.
Rebecca Archer
And other nurses trained nurses? How do you recruit them? How do you kind of get them to become a McGrath Foundation Cancer Care Nurse?
Tracy Bevan
Yeah, so they've got at least 5 years’ experience as a registered nurse, and then they specialise in whatever cancer/tumour strea, that they're experts in.
So, they really are experts, and as we know, patients tend to want to tell our nurses everything that's actually going through their heads. I'll bring it back to Jane. Jane said to me to simplify it, she said, “Trace, she's you.” I said, “What do you mean?” She says, “She's the friend that you can't be because you can't answer all the questions that are keeping me awake at night. So then as I creep into Holly and James's bedroom and sit on their bed making promises that I will fight this with everything I've got, if I tell you that Trace, you feel terrible and I feel worse.”
She said, “But when I tell Alison all the things that are going through my head, all the things that I'm experiencing…”. And she said, “Luckily, lots of them are just side effects.” She said, “But people have, you know, trouble with – on a diagnosis – there might be a single parent who then can't work. So how do I get the kids to school? How do I cook meals?”
And all these things that people don't even understand unless you're going through that diagnosis, the impact it has on not just the patient's health, but their psychological needs, the psychosocial needs, their family needs. Our nurse is there to provide that everyday care for the whole family – for free.
Rebecca Archer
So are they responsible for sort of connecting the family with the right services and sort of acting as a conduit, like, “I'll take this off your plate and I'll go and sort that out for you.”
Tracy Bevan
100 per cent. I couldn’t have said it better.
They act as the patient's advocate, especially when sitting in that multidisciplinary team. So, someone might say, “Okay, she can start treatment on a Tuesday at 3 o' clock.” And our nurse will say, “Well, that doesn't work because she has children at school; she can't do that time.” So, she acts as that conduit within the team.
One of my favourite stories was when this lady contacted me. She raised a lot of money for us because she'd had someone who didn't back by diagnosis, and she then contacted me months later to say, “You won't believe it, I've been diagnosed with cancer.
And she said to me, “Trace, when I knew I had to leave my family and go to the Sunshine Coast to start treatment, she said the biggest thing for me was that I have a baby Joey.” And she said, “And I felt ridiculous saying to the nurse, when she said to me, what outside of your treatment are you most concerned about?” And she said, “Well, I feel silly, but I've got this baby Joey and I've got no one at home to look after it.”
She said, “Leave it with me.” She said, “She called me back not a few hours later, said, bring the Joey with you. I've got someone who will look after you.”
And I was just like, “Oh God, our nurses are incredible.”
They are that friend that looks at not just your diagnosis, but they have a lens on your life and they are there to make your life better in a really dark, scary time. They're there to be there holding your hand and making it just that little bit better.
Rebecca Archer
It sounds to me like that role – that Cancer Care Nurse role for The McGrath Foundation – would be incredibly fulfilling. There'd be so much that you get out of it, in a sense of helping people, but the patients themselves are probably unloading a lot onto those nurses.
So do you ever have feedback from those nurses that go, “Oh gosh, you know, as rewarding as this job is, it's quite tough as well.”
And how do you support them?
Tracy Bevan
Well, we do support our nurses so they can give that same expert care to their patients. So, yeah, we do. We have an intranet, so we have all our nurses supporting each other, sharing knowledge, sharing if they don't know something, they can reach out to all our nurses. We do provide also education. We continually helping our nurses with education.
We also have nurses that will fill in for our nurse if she needs to take a break. So, there's still that continuation of care for the patient, but so the nurse doesn't feel guilty about it, and we encourage time out, you know, time off.
Even for the older nurses who are looking at retirement, we also look at ways that we can keep the nurse in the workforce, but job share, you know, they might say, well, I'm happy to work one or two days a week. There might be a number of nurses that say the same.
So, we do look at ways that prolonging their retirement so they can still want to stay in the workforce most of all, but also feeling supported that we would love them to stay in the workforce and share their knowledge to other nurses. Yeah, we know how important it is. But, you know, our nurses, I think – not just our nurses, all nurses – are born for that role, and I think they're little superheroes.
So, for them, they don't look at what they do as something unique. You know, they turn to me and just say, “Oh, we get so much support. It's quite embarrassing. You know, The McGrath Foundation is incredible how much you support us, but you know, it's just my job.”
And I just think that they just take that job, and they feel they get as much from giving as they do, you know, to their patients. They just love that they're having a positive impact and expert care for that patient and their family.
Rebecca Archer
You've recently released a new Model of Care. First of all, can you talk about what, what exactly a Model of Care is and how this new Model of Care for The McGrath Foundation will better support people who are navigating that cancer journey?
Tracy Bevan
Well, it focuses on helping families live well throughout a diagnosis, and it's that same continuous expert care.
So, regardless of where you live in Australia, regardless – hopefully one day- what type of cancer that you've got, our nurses deliver that same expert care, and that's what our Model of Care is about.
So, we made the Model of Care – there was no Model of Care in Australia – so we developed that Model of Care in 2015, and then since we've now gone to all cancers. We've been working with experts across all cancers because we're not experts. We're not experts in all cancers. We are in breast.
So, we have been working with experts in all tumour streams to develop our Model of Care, and we're really proud that that has been now released. That is one of my biggest things that I'm proud of. I'm proud that we developed the Model of Care. I'm proud that we now have developed it for all cancers, but we also share that Model of Care, regardless if you're a McGrath Foundation Nurse; we're there to give help.
Australians receive that same equity of care, regardless of what kind of cancer or regardless if you're a McGrath Cancer Care Nurse or not.
Rebecca Archer
And how does it impact at each different stage? Are you able to speak to that at all?
Tracy Bevan
The model is built around care, so regardless of what stage you are, it's about receiving expert care the whole time, and that's what we say. You know, there's different stages of a diagnosis, but the stage of care is exactly the same.
Rebecca Archer
How do you measure impact at the Foundation? I mean, we've talked about the fantastic milestones that you've hit, but how do you quantify the difference that's made to people's lives? Is that even possible?
Tracy Bevan
It is – by numbers. You know, we look at the numbers. How many nurses?
Currently, 343 McGrath Cancer Care Nurses across Australia, and we know that's not enough. Now, we've gone to all cancers. You know, we need, as Jane said from day one, “An army of these incredible nurses.”
And we've even got male nurses now. So, that's something that's even different as well for The McGrath Foundation. But for us, it's about how many nurses we can place and how many families we can support. That's at the crux of everything that we do.
As I said, 343 isn't enough now we've gone to all cancers, but we've made that commitment that we will now continue. Our mission is to ensure no one goes through cancer without the care of McGrath Cancer Care Nurse, and that's going to take time, but what I've seen over the last 20 years is the way Australia step up, and many of those have received that care and want that same care for others, and many have received that care and now have a family member with a different type of cancer and see that they don't receive that same standard of care. So, they want to support The McGrath Foundation.
So, for us, it's about the nurses in communities and having that free care and support.
Rebecca Archer
Have you had any outreach from other places of people saying, “Hey, we really like what you do. We'd love to talk to you about trying to establish something like what you're doing in Australia, where we are?
Tracy Bevan
I know that we're very open and transparent and very happy to knowledge share, which we have had people reach out. Andrew Strauss, who was the captain of UK English Cricket Team, he did reach out about how we turned the Pink Test pink.
He lost his beautiful wife Ruth, who was Australian, and he studied his own charity, and he asked us could we give him support on how to turn Lords red for Ruth. So, we knowledge-shared, we gave him everything that we've learned along the way and he now does that. So, you know, he turns Lords red for Ruth every year, and as I say, we're very happy to knowledge share everything that we do. We're not gatekeepers on anything because the ultimate thing for us is helping patients going through a difficult time.
Rebecca Archer
How does it make you feel when you see those huge test matches and you have just got a sea of pink in the spectators, among the crowd? What sort of emotion does that trigger in you?
Tracy Bevan
It never gets lost on me, Rebecca, because every Single year since 2009, I've walked through those gates and seen how the flow of pink, I mean, as a cricket wife, who would have even thought, one, that we'd have members going pink, that the ICC would allow, you know, the boys to have stickers on their backs, would allow the logo to turn pink, who would allow sponsors would even get involved and turn their IP pink.
Never, ever did I think I would see that day. But every time I walk through those gates in January, every single year, I do take time on my own, and I'll go to the ladies stand where it's then on Jane McGrath day – day three – it's this lady stand where Jane and I used to sit and watch the boys play cricket, pretend that we like the game of cricket. She used to read a book called Cricket for Dummies. I used to learn from her, didn't have a clue what we were doing, but we'd sit there in the stand, pretend that we did, and I now sit there still, and I take that time every year to sit there in our seats and have a cry, have a laugh.
But I always make sure on this day three, every single year, I look at Glenn and I point to the Jane McGrath Stand and I say to him, “Oh, you've still not got stand named after you McGrath.”
And so, it's overwhelming, but it's also incredible, and I've learned to smile over the years. I've learned to see, you know, I know what the impact of pink means. Every time you see the colour pink for The McGrath Foundation, every time it means care and the care, free care support that we can bring by people turning things pink, having community events for us, corporates turning their IP pink and products pink, you know, donors choosing to support The McGrath Foundation.
That colour pink, that sea of pink means The McGrath Foundation are taking that sea of pink to care to those sea of families experiencing a diagnosis of cancer.
Rebecca Archer
Let's have a look at the last year because obviously you mentioned end of 2024, early 2025, was great milestone, but I want to ask you about what maybe has been an impactful story from your personal experience just in that time?
Tracy Bevan
Yeah. One that stays with me... I've got many over the years.
Lots of people will stop me they say absolutely beautiful things. But, while I'm traveling around Australia speaking at events, people will always share their story with me and thank me for that incredible care and support, but something that stuck out with me recently was a lady stopped me and she had a tear in her eyes and she just said, “Thank God for Jane McGrath. Thank you for that care that I've received. The difference the nurse made to my life and even to my marriage.” She said, “It saved my marriage.”
And I said, “You know, I've heard that before.”
And I just gave her a hug and I said, “I'm so glad that you got that care.” And then she said to me, “But my husband has recently been diagnosed with another form of cancer.” And I said, “Okay.” And she said, “But he doesn't have that care.”
I just felt the weight of that on my shoulders. And I just, “I'm so sorry.” She said, “It's even my children are saying, why is dad not got the same care is you've had mum; why we not got the name of their nurse who's helping dad?”
And that sits heavy with me because I know it's going to take time, but very much when Jane and I started this, not having a clue what we were doing, you know, to see where we are in that short space of time.
21 years, it will be in September that we started the Foundation, but the heaviness of knowing that there's still families out there in other tumour strains that don't currently have that expert care – that free expert care – that expert care that doesn't even need a referral that weighs heavy on me.
So, it's also a personal motivator and a driver for me that I will, as our ex-CEO Holly Masters, who's just recently retired, said to me, “Trace,” as we reached that 250 breast care nurses, and she gave me a hug and I thanked her as I have everyone who's worked at the Foundation, thank you for her commitment and to help us, drive us to get to where we were. Then she said, “How does it feel?” I said, “Oh, it's, you know, it feels Incredible how proud Jane would be.” And then she said, “Well, I'm here to tell you, Trace, that we're only at base camp.” And she said, “We've got a lot of work to do.”
So, the heaviness of looking into that lady's eyes, knowing that she knew and I knew, the support he didn't have, but he deserved, but it's also now a driver; it's a motivator.
And I hear it not just from that lady, but that was the most impactful, was that straight after making that announcement about going to all cancer, is the drive, not just for me, for the whole McGrath Foundation team.
Rebecca Archer
So given that, what's in the pipeline, I guess in the short term, maybe this is sounding like very much the, the new long-term mission and goal. Anything that you've got coming up that you're working on and your vision for the future that you might be able to share?
Tracy Bevan
Well, the vision for the future is just placing as many Cancer Care Nurses and it is working with other experts in cancer streams, making sure – which we have through our Model of Care – but to continue to make sure that we are bringing that same equity of care to all cancers, and it's simplified.
It is having as many Cancer Care Nurses in different cancer streams giving that free care support right across Australia. So, the same model that we did when we mapped Australia, the whole of Australia and said, “Where's the need? What's the need? How do we reach the need?”
That's what we did with breast cancer. We are currently doing exactly the same, mapping out the whole of Australia. Where's the need? What's the need? What cancer stream do we need to be putting into communities? You know, we work with the Royal Flying Doctors, you know, who else can we work with to take that equity of care, the expert care to remote patients, what does that look like in remote communities? So that's our focus at the moment.
We've got the Model of Care, but how do we implement it into the whole of Australia and what does it look like in Australia?
Rebecca Archer
Well, Tracy, it's been an absolute pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you for making the time. And look, if people are interested in finding out more or helping, making a donation, volunteering perhaps, what's the best way for them to reach out and get in touch and maybe find out more information.
Tracy Bevan
If anybody would like to help The McGrath Foundation keep placing McGrath Cancer Care Nurses, or as we say, to ensure no one goes through cancer without the care of McGrath Cancer Care Nurse, head to the McGrath foundation website.
There's lots of ways to get involved. As you said, volunteer, especially at the Pink Test – we have nearly a thousand volunteers, you know, different shifts. You might want to get involved with our campaigns, which is Pink Up Your Town during October or have a cricket day for us – Pink Stumps day.
There's lots of ways and it doesn't have to be big. You know, every single dollar, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, some people say, “Oh, I can't do much.” Well then when Mudgee turns pink in October, go and buy a pink cupcake.
You know, every single dollar is helping The McGrath Foundation help a family going through a really difficult time.
So, head to the website or even call The McGrath Foundation team. We'd love to have a chat and see how we can work together.
Rebecca Archer
If you liked this conversation, you can find more on the Grant Thornton Australia website. I'm Rebecca Archer – thank you for listening.
Upbeat outro music
