Hunt for healthcare

By Kath Gannaway
A NEW committee will work on a five-year plan to provide a permanent home for medical services in Yarra Glen.
The Yarra Glen Medical Precinct Group (YGMPG), headed by resident Dorothy Barber and including some of the district’s high-profile health, business and community members, will take the first steps towards incorporation at a public meeting on Saturday 10 May.
Associate Professor of Social Work at Monash University Max Liddell has been co-opted as part of a study into the impact of the current skills shortage on small communities.
The YGMPG has the use Cameron House on the town’s outskirts as an interim base for a GP and allied health services for the next five years.
Their search for a doctor continues but a speech therapist and psychologist/family therapist have signed on and there is interest from other providers to work out of the house.
Ms Barber, who has a background in social work, said the idea for a not-for-profit community-run organisation to provide the infrastructure and coordinate medical services came from the realisation that the town was vulnerable to outside events.
“When the clinic closed we didn’t just lose our doctor, we lost all the infrastructure,” Ms Barber said.
“Our plan is to purpose-build a facility that can incorporate services such as a range of allied health practitioners, the maternal health centre and the toy library.”
There are fears that the future of the town’s pharmacy may also be in doubt without a local doctor.
“We are concerned that unless we put in place some way of getting through this stalemate we may always be in this uncertain situation,” Ms Barber said.
A strong focus of the YGMPG committee will be to work with all levels of government to get funding for the project.
Another aim is to provide a training component and an opportunity for young people to get a start in practice.
The committee, an amalgam of people from the Yarra Glen Township Group, the chamber, the Uniting Church and local residents, is a mix Ms Barber describes with enthusiasm as “skills-based and action orientated”.
“We have big plans,” she said as she looked over Cameron House last week with fellow committee members Norm Cronin, Di Moore and Marjorie Woollands.
“The public meeting will be an opportunity for people to meet the committee members, hear what we have in mind and, hopefully, support us in the first step of becoming an incorporated body,” Ms Barber said.
The public meeting will be held at 3pm as part of the Melba Community and Thanksgiving Day at Yarra Glen Racecourse.