Tuesday night saw years of collaborative work around the Lower Gulf Strategy rewarded with Queensland Health’s Rural and Remote Award for Outstanding Achievement awarded to the North West Hospital and Health Service.
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The Award, presented at Queensland Health’s 2018 Awards for Excellence ceremony in Brisbane, was received by staff working on the Lower Gulf Strategy, including nurses and health workers from remote Doomadgee Hospital.
NWHHS Board Chair, Paul Woodhouse said he was pleased at the recognition of the work but also wanted to pass that recognition on to the key partners in the Lower Gulf Strategy.
Chief Executive Lisa Davies Jones also attended the ceremony.
“The Award is an important recognition of the collaborative of three health organisations: the Western Queensland Primary Health Network (WQPHN), Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, Gidgee Healing, and the NWHHS,” Mr Woodhouse said.
“The Lower Gulf Strategy is but one springboard for the future, not only for better health, but how we do business in the North West.”
The strategy aims to improve patient outcomes in the three targeted lower gulf communities of Doomadgee, Mornington Island and Normanton.
“This strategy is a collaboration of three health organisations, the PHN, Gidgee Healing and the NWHHS, working together, firstly to listen to our communities’ concerns around health care, and then to devise and implement an integrated model of care for these communities,” Mr Woodhouse said.
The emphasis of the Lower Gulf Strategy was on primary and preventative health care, he said.
“With the strategic help of the PHN, and the involvement of Gidgee Healing, we could introduce a model of care to each community, that integrated primary health care as the main focus, with the hospitals in each community then able to focus on acute care.
“Already we are seeing results with a 1,300 per cent increase in Aboriginal health checks, a marked decrease in patients turning up to Emergency Department in our remote hospitals and a corresponding increase in patients attending Gidgee Healing clinics.”
Mr Woodhouse said the strategy had also seen an increase in Indigenous employment in health in the three communities.
“Through the Lower Gulf Strategy, 28 positions have been created and filled by local Indigenous candidates through Gidgee Healing, and across the primary care services, approximately 85 percent of the workforce is Indigenous.”
