The North Coast Committee is pleased to welcome you all to the 2007 Annual General Meeting. This completes yet another year of non-government Indigenous health service provision to the residents of the Sunshine Coast & Gympie regions.
I would especially like to welcome our distinguished guests Mr Peter Wellington, State Member for Nicklin. Peter has had a very long history with NCACCH dating back to 1999. Mr Kevin Hegarty, the Sunshine Coast & Cooloola Districts Manager for Queensland Health (QH) and Mr Ian Landreth, the Chief Executive Officer for the Sunshine Coast Division of General Practice. Both these fellows and their organisations have been invaluable to NCACCH . Their co-operation in our 3-way partnership arrangement enables the NCACCH Brokerage Model to operate as effectively as it does. I would also thank our Senior Project Officer Chris Edith from our funding body OATSIH for coming up from Brisbane and attending our AGM as well.
New Gympie Office
The board decided that as nearly 30% of our clients have a post code of 4570 & 4580 (Gympie & surrounds) then it would be good to have a Referral Office centrally located in Gympie. With the additional monies we received for expansion & enhancement we have been able to identify the funding needed. Sharelle, our Project Officer, has agreed to move to Gympie and work from there. Some of you may recognise the office location at Shop 3/56 River road, Gympie from the photos on the screen. This is an excellent opportunity for NCACCH to better service the people in that area as they will not only have a place they can identify with but it will also take some pressure off our existing Referrers in that area. It may also be used as a “referral hub”, where people can get as much information as possible about all services that are available to Indigenous people residing in the region.
New Database
The new database is running behind schedule because of some unforeseen issues ie; moving the dependents over from the old database. This has caused us a major setback and most has had to be done manually. This has now been completed and we using the database daily without any hitches.
Mum’s & Bub’s Program
We have commenced a pilot program for pregnant Indigenous women. The program will focus on providing additional support by:
- encouraging more Indigenous women to access Health Care through Queensland Health and/or their General Practitioner
- assisting mothers to utilise preventative health practices, including supportive ante-natal & post-natal care through the support of a midwife
- allowing women to participate in developing their plan of health care
- supporting women to address lifestyle issues including nutrition, smoking and alcohol
- supporting mothers and their babies until the child is around one year of age.
Funding for this was identified last year and referral to the program is through the normal Referrer process.
Health Statistics for 1 July 2006 to 30 June 2007
GP visits: Clients made 3939 visits to a Doctor.
Number of GP’s: 167
Referrals: Clients had 503 referrals.
Oral health: 350 people went to a Dentist.
Mental health: 94 people attended Counselling.
New HAC cards: 175 with 274 dependents
Next year we should be able to provide more detailed reports from the database.
Healthy For Life
The government decided that it was too difficult for NCACCH to “fit” into some of the restrictive governmental guidelines of the program and that NCACCH would not qualify for the second round of funding. They did however approve the $37K surplus to be moved into the health services part of the budget. NCACCH has already developed a program, HealthTrax, to address the Healthy for Life objectives and are in the process of obtaining funding from other sources and support from our partners and others for the delivery of it.
2007 Health Survey
Some of you will have participated in the recent health needs mini survey conducted by NCACCH at this year’s Well Person’s Health Check Days, held in Warana and Gympie. We have enclosed the results of this survey in your meeting papers. You will see that visits to GP’s, Dentists & Counsellors remains high on the list as expected and NCACCH will continue to fund these programs as well as the others.
Well Person’s Health Check Days
NCACCH hosted both these days in Kawana and Gympie in the months of March and April respectively. These days are opportunities for Indigenous families to begin the process of accessing the full adult and child health checks by your own chosen doctor and available free through Medicare. We would like to thank all the participating service providers who attended on the days, especially the Division of General Practice. They generously provided the doctors for the exit interviews free of charge for us on the days. Also Queensland Health (QH) for the Indigenous Health Team, the Cultural Healing Team and others nurses for the staffing of the health stations. A full report on both of these days is included in your papers.
“Sexual Health & Relationships Through the Eyes of an Indigenous Teenager” Poster Competition
Once again NCACCH is hosting another poster competition in order to see what our young people think of when we ask them about “sexual health”. The 12 best entries will become the basis for the NACCCH 2008-09 Sexual Health Calendar. The board and staff are very disappointed with the response of only 7 entries being received by the cut off date, so we have extended the competition until 31 October. I trust all NCACCH members and others present received a copy of the 2007/08 calendar in the mail recently, if not please get more copies on the registration table at the door. Also, we have included one in your bag tonight so you can share with your friends and colleagues. They do look quite good hanging up in school administration buildings and other non-Indigenous offices! All good for reconciliation we reckon.
Continuous Quality Improvement Initiative
NCACCH received the additional one-off funding mentioned in last year’s report. Our request was to gain accreditation as a best practice organisation with a recognised body. We have registered with the Institute for Healthy Communities Australia (IHCA) and have been working towards attaining accreditation, although it is a slow and precise process. The board feels that we may complete this by June of next year and will report to the members at the 2008 AGM. It is becoming more evident that only accredited organisations may receive funding in the future so it is better to “head them off at the pass” so to speak!
NCACCH Membership
We now have 138 members and 18 associate members from most areas around the coast. This is once again a good geographical representation and will be important for those people who have not heard of us nor used the health services available to them as yet. The more members we have gives us greater credibility and will hopefully assist in more favourable responses with funding bodies. This is a 16% drop from last year but we didn’t carry out a membership drive this year as in previous years. We can’t afford to let our numbers drop so we must focus on attempting to increase our memberships each year. If you know of anybody who would like to become a fully fledged member of NCACCH then please send them our way.
Training Opportunities
NCACCH staff and board members have attended a number of training courses and conferences over the last year ie:
• the 8th Annual Health Professionals Symposium, Breaking Down the Barriers to Diabetes Self-Management (Auntie Lorraine/Auntie Olive)
• Financial training with QAIHC & MYOB (Jackie)
• Presentation at the Sexual Health Conference held in Townsville (Sharelle & Lorraine)
• Certificate IV in Project Management (Jackie & Sharelle)
• File-Trac Correspondence database (Lyndelle)
• Computer program office applications (Lyndelle)
• Front Line Management (Lorraine)
• Registrar training (New Act)
• OATSIH (new funding agreement)
• Indigenous Doctors Association AGM
• IHCA Internal Auditing Certificate
• New Database training all staff
• Hearing Workshop (Lorraine)
• First Aid Training (all staff)
• NACCHO AGM & Conference
Wanna Be Deadly Youth Group
NCACCH was approached last year by this group’s organising committee to auspice some funding for them. The board agreed to do so because they felt that there were many opportunities for young Indigenous people to benefit by getting involved in this group. The focus is on health through sport and recreational activities. Staff and board members attended some of the community workshops with the planning committee to plan events. The events included sport and recreational activities, sport and cultural activities, regional touch football carnival, Christmas break up, arts and NAIDOC. There was a positive attendance at events ranging from 30 to over 800 people at times. We also provided support to the program by providing the use of our bus and a driver at times, as well as auspicing the funding. For more information about the program just see any of the staff from the QH Cultural Healing Team who do an absolutely excellent job around the coast.
Representations
NCACCH retains membership in and is regularly represented on the following forums and organisations;
National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation – our national peak body
Queensland Aboriginal & Islander Health Council – our state peak body
Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Corporation Health Education & Training
Sunshine Coast & Wide Bay Regional Health Forum
Sunshine Coast District Health Forum – a Qld Health initiative
Office for Indigenous Policy Co-ordination - Shared Responsibility Agreement
Sunshine Coast Indigenous Network Group – local interagency
Sunshine Coast Substance Misuse Forum – OATSIH initiative
Men’s & Women’s Groups
23 men attended our Men’s Groups with Dr Jim Williams from the Division of General Practice who was invited along to talk about Diabetes and Prostate cancer amongst other things.
35 women attended the Women’s Groups, held at different venues around the coast and included guest speakers from Lifeline, Breastscreen Qld and Nungeena. We would like to see more people attend these days, so please keep them in mind and talk to your friends about them.
The NCACCH Committee
Finally, the Committee has met formally for board meetings on ten (10) occasions as well as attending numerous workshops on governance, capacity building, Referrers w/shops, the development of the 2007/08 NCACCH SDRF Action Plan as well as our 2007-09 Strategic Plan (which you will all have a copy of with your papers). This has ensured the good running and management of North Coast and shows the high level of commitment from the people you elected. I would like to thank my fellow incumbent board members: Helen Felstead as Secretary and Gordon Browning, as well as the out-going members Auntie Olive Bennet as Treasurer and Auntie Lorraine Harvey for the commitment and dedication they all have shown to this organisation during their terms and wish them well in this coming election tonight.
You will also have realised by now that during the year the board invited Ronda Randall from Beerburrum and Paula Wootton from Imbil to the committee as Ordinary Committee Members to fill the vacancies from last year. These ladies also need to be commended for their commitment and enthusiasm during their time with us. They are both nominated for the election tonight and I wish them both well.
This Board feels that our organisation has come a very long way since the late 90’s and are very proud to be associated with it. This could not have been achieved without the hard work, dedication and perseverance shown by this and previous committees.
I would now like to thank the staff, Jackie, Sharelle, Lorraine, Lyndelle, Cheryl (who is leaving us at Xmas) and John for the work they have done in the administration of the day to day workings and helping to make NCACCH so successful. We also welcome the new staff of NCACCH, Bella and Suzi and trust they get enough job satisfaction from their time at NCACCH and give the same commitment back to the community as our current staff do!
Thank you
Tom Cleary, Chairperson on behalf of
the NCACCH Committee. |
