Health Promotion
Numurkah District Health Service (NDHS) strives to provide an optimal Primary Health Service to all residents of Numurkah and District. NDHS promotes a community-based model of care that supports community capacity building to planning, delivery and evaluation. Strong community health services mean a strong consumer-focused interface and strengthens the capacity for partnerships with other sectors that influence the health of individuals and populations.
The Community Health program service include:
- Health promotion and prevention
- Early identification and intervention
- assessment and treatment (eg: allied health services such as dietetics, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, podiatry, foot care, speech therapy, district nursing, grief & bereavement, counselling / casework, cardiac rehabilitation, midwifery, women's health, diabetic education, financial counselling) and
- Coordinated care with GPs, other primary providers, the acute, aged care and mental health sectors.
Community Health services also provide a platform for the delivery of a range of other primary health services including drug and alcohol, medical, post acute care, home and community care, community rehabilitation and planned activity centres.
Community Health currently has more then nine hundred contacts per month and demand is steadily increasing. Due to the increasing demand on services a restructure is currently taking place in order to alleviate waiting lists. This applies in particular to Podiatry, Foot Care and Speech Therapy but will also be applied across all disciplines. A Priority and Triage system will be implemented in 2010 with the goal of ensuring that those clients of greatest urgency are seen in a timelier manner. This would involve for example Diabetics having a greater priority for Foot Care than a client requiring a cosmetic procedure.
Failure to attend without sufficient notice continues to be a costly problem across all disciplines and directly effects the waiting list. This is being addressed with a modified Intake and appointment reminder system however early notification of cancellation (at least 24 hours prior to appointment) would be much appreciated.
The Numurkah Community Health Care Team wishes you a healthy and prosperous new year. We look forward to providing an equitable and accessible Health Service to all residents of Numurkah and surrounding areas in 2010.
If you have any suggestions or anything you may wish to discuss, I can be contacted at Community Health on (03) 58620560