RDN’s Outreach team hosts successful regional stakeholder meetings on north and mid-north coast 

The RDN Outreach team has been continuing its annual round of regional stakeholder meetings across NSW and, last week, hosted the north coast regional meeting at Healthy North Coast Primary Health Network (PHN) in Ballina, and mid-north coast meeting at Werin Medical Clinic Port Macquarie. 

RDN’s Outreach Services Manager, Amanda Masset, said RDN hosts regional meetings of all Outreach local partner organisations and stakeholders as part of the yearly service review and planning process. 

“These meetings bring key stakeholders from the local community together and provide an open forum to review the Outreach program service plan for the new year ahead, discuss referral pathways, common challenges in the sector and share successful models and approaches,” Amanda said. 

The Outreach programs are funded by The Australian Government and work to increase access to healthcare services for rural, remote and Aboriginal communities and have proved highly successful.

Last week’s meeting in Ballina brought together representatives from Bullinah Aboriginal Health Service, Rekindling the Spirit, Northern NSW Local Health District, Healthy North Coast PHN and the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council (AH&MRC).
 
Acting CEO of Rekindling the Spirit, Marilyn Tolman, said “Rekindling the Spirit would like to extend our thanks to the dedicated staff at RDN for their continued support for our community.”  

“Their staff have listened to our community voices and together we have been able to tailor our Outreach programs to ensure we are achieving positive and effective health outcomes,” Marilyn said. 

“We are grateful for their assistance in guaranteeing we have the qualified staff to provide the much-needed Outreach services to our community within the Lismore and Nimbin footprint.” 

Present at the Port Macquarie meeting were Werin Aboriginal Corporation, Galambila Aboriginal Health Service, Healthy North Coast and Mid North Coast LHD. These organisations were also invited to present updates on their activities and to discuss challenges and opportunities for collaboration. 

The beauty of the Outreach health access model is the continuity of care and partnerships. The CEO of Werin  Aboriginal Corporation Fay Adamson said, “Werin has been engaged in partnership with RDN for 16 years and we still have some clinicians who have been with us during that entire time”.