North West Health and Hospital Service say a fully integrated health service model is the preferred approach to dealing with health disadvantage in the Lower Gulf region.
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Making the opening address at Thursday’s outback allied health conference at the JCU campus in Mount Isa, NWHHS chief executive Lisa Davies Jones outlined the challenges involved in improving health status in a region where 90 percent of residents identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
Ms Davies Jones said health status was not improving for those people with extremely levels of social disadvantage especially in Doomadgee and Mornington Island with over one in five people unemployed, high crime rates and high rates of lifestyle risk factors such as smoking, alcohol and obesity.
These were all leading to poor health outcomes such as high instance of cardiovascular disease and diabetes with mental health, substance abuse and sexually transmitted disease all a problem.
Ms Davies Jones said NWHHS, North West Remote Health, Gidgee Healing, RFDS and others all working hard to provide an “acute care focus”.
“But unfortunately it is pretty fragmented, that’s the reality of it,” Ms Davies Jones said.
unfortunately it is pretty fragmented, that’s the reality of it
- Lisa Davies Jones
“Sometimes the services we provide are high quality and well integrated but sometimes there are gaps in service and a lack of access for high risk populations with a significant need.”
Ms Davies Jones said these communities needed a comprehensive primary care model which fully integrated all the services in the region.
MS Davies Jones said that model would need a phased approach moving from informal linkages between service providers to more formal coordination via clinical pathways and shared information.
That would lead to a pooling of resources with a full integration of services within a single organisation, she said. That means a “tripartite alliance” between Gidgee Healing, NWHHS and federally funded Western Queensland Primary Health Network.
Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
