Place stories
Saving lives through mobile clinics
Australia has one of the highest skin cancer rates in the world, with more than 2,000 Australians dying from this disease each year. But if diagnosis occurs early, the fatality rate is significantly reduced. There are just 15 out of 199 dermatologists holding clinics in eight Victorian country towns.
The Lions V District Cancer Foundation Inc received $25,000 through FRRR’s Strengthening Rural Communities program, funded by The William Buckland Foundation (managed by Equity Trustees), towards converting a van into a free mobile screening clinic and purchasing a truck with which to tow the van. Thanks to volunteer dermoscopists, they have travelled far and wide screening more than 1,000 people and referring over a third to specialists.
“With the appointments of a Screening visit coordinator and Driver Coordinator, the unit is now being booked by Lions Clubs across Victoria. The coordinators manage the process and identify screeners and driver logistics to maximise the efficiency of the unit as it travels. The unit was booked out in 2020 and has many reservations now for 2021 and even 2022.”
Photo credit: Tony Fawcett
Photo credit: Tony Fawcett
Photo credit: Tony Fawcett
Injalak Arts celebrates contemporary culture in Gunbalanya
The traditional owners of Gunbalanya is the Gumurdul family who allow Injalak to operate on their land and are actively supportive of the art centre.
Gunbalunya’s Injalak Arts centre in West Arnhem Land supports over 350 Indigenous Kunwinjku artists and, pre-COVID, welcomed thousands of tourists visit every year.
With COVID restrictions meaning no visitors allowed, Injalak Arts ran a two-week music workshop and a week-long live video production workshop to enable local artists to demonstrate their creative expertise and talents, as well as developing new skills in live television production.
This involved song recording contributions from local musicians, and coaching and mentoring for eight members of a newly formed Media Unit.
A $10,000 Strengthening Rural Communities grant, funded by the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation, enabled Injalak Arts to pay artist and consultation fees to the Indigenous Australians who led the workshops.
Attract, connect, stay: SARRAH’s bold plan
Nari Nari Country
The peak body representing rural and remote allied health professionals (AHPs) in Australia is leading the charge on a project to improve the recruitment and retention of rural health workforce in three local government areas (LGAs) across New South Wales.
Services for Rural and Remote Allied Health (SARRAH) received a $140,149 grant from FRRR’s Enhancing Country Health Outcomes program, funded by Beyond Medical Education.
These funds will allow SARRAH to work with three community consortiums to develop locally funded and tailored programs, which will culminate in the appointment of Rural Health Workforce Coordinators (RHWC) in each of the three LGAs. The RHWC’s primary role is to support health professionals and their partners / families when moving into a new rural community to help them feel settled, become socially connected, and experience a sense of belonging: all essential conditions for retention.
The Attract, Connect, Stay project is a whole-of-community approach based on a model developed in Marathon, Ontario, Canada, which has operated successfully for the last decade.
Planning has commenced in the pilot communities, and networks formed to jointly develop, fund, recruit, appoint, manage and monitor the RHWC position and its’ success in attracting and retaining suitable health professionals to fill health service gaps in each community.
Learnings from the three NSW primary sites will be captured in prototype tools and resources, and further tested in two secondary sites in rural Victoria. The project will conclude with the launch of a purpose-built website where the refined tools and resources will be made available to the public. This will allow other communities to use the tools and resources to help design local approaches to address gaps in their own primary and preventative health workforces.
