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Port Macquarie-Hastings Council Rural Health Outreach ProjectRural Health Outreach Program

Winner: 2009 Heart Foundation Local Government Awards

Category Winner: Priority Groups

The Rural Health project is an innovative partnership between Port Macquarie-Hastings Council, the North Coast Area Health Service Rural Outreach Project, ten Non-Council Owned Hall communities and the Division of General Practice. The aim of the project is to deliver outreach health programs and services into the rural and remote areas of the Hastings LGA. Including: Kindee, Long Flat, Rollands Plains, Telegraph Point, Comboyne, Byabarra, Ellenborough, Kendall, Pappinbarra/Hollisdale, and Camden Haven.

The project has been operating for a number of years and seeks to engage the community in Community health services including Drug and Alcohol, Early Childhood, Nutrition and Dieticians, Hearing, the Breast Screening Bus, Diabetes checks, Blood Pressure, Mental Health, Skin Cancer Screening, Podiatry, Hearing, Quit Smoking campaigns, and Eye testing. Twenty nine local service providers have also attended the communities through Community Fun Days, Women's and Men's Health days and Seniors Week activities. Including Centrelink, the Women's Refuge, Commonwealth Carelink services, Department of Aging, Disability and Home Care, ACON, and Council divisions.

An exciting development has been the recent partnership with the Division of General Practice resulting in three General Practitioners (including one female GP) outreaching into the rural communities on a weekly/fortnightly basis. This service is bulk billed and assists particularly those in the rural areas who have limited mobility or lack of access to vehicles.

Additional significant outcomes include:

  • increased health outcomes in the testing and education of community members,
  • increased social interaction for those who are geographically and socially isolated (4,506 residents)
  • increased physical activity through Tai Chi,
  • better connections to services through the Men's and Women's health days and Seniors week activities,
  • increased support for farming and fishing families affected by the economic downturn and drought through fishing families expo's,
  • involvement with the Rural Farmers Mental Health project, and ongoing support of the Division of General Practice.

This project is now also linking with the Wauchope Neighbourhood Centre services including the

  • Food Cents program (shopping, cooking and eating well on a budget),
  • Community Garden project,
  • Toy libraries,
  • Transport project, and
  • other training such as First Aid and basic computing.

Want to know more?

For more information about this innovative award-winning program please contact Maya Spannari.

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