By ZAIDA GLIBANOVIC
LATROBE Regional Health (LRH) is among five regional hospitals that will benefit from this year’s Good Friday Appeal for the first time ever.
Since the Good Friday Appeal’s inception, regional hospitals have never received donations, but now this funding will help bring the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) excellence to the regions to support training, scholarships, and state-of-the-art equipment.
This investment will improve the experience and outcomes of children receiving care in regional settings, keep children closer to home and increase capability in the regions, making the pathway to specialist care easier.
Minister for Health, Mary-Anne Thomas gave the exciting announcement in early February.
“The Good Friday Appeal is a much loved institution here in Victoria as is the Royal Children’s Hospital – every family has got a story about the Royal Children’s and for the first time thanks to the generosity of Victorians, some of the fund raised on that day will be distributed to regional hospitals,” said Ms Thomas speaking to TRFM.
Ms Thomas confirmed that LRH will receive significant funds for a number of improvements and developments.
“There will be support provided for Latrobe Regional Health in order to up-skill staff, to create Gippsland’s first neurodevelopment outpatients clinic, to purchase new equipment to detect and manage eye disease and of course to increase the capability of staff with new specialist training equipment,” she said.
The Minister for Health said this announcement complimented the state’s government’s commitment to improve paediatrics care in regional areas.
“Our health services already deliver world-class care to children but this is about boosting it and providing it even more specialist support,” she said.
Funds that LRH receive will go towards a number of new scholarships that will enable Grade 2 Allied Health workers to develop the specialisations needed to establish Gippsland’s first neurodevelopment outpatient clinic. Offering assessments and therapies locally will avoid the need to travel for specialist care, and will assist in the early detection of neurodevelopmental problems, such as autism spectrum disorder, and vision and hearing problems, thereby helping to avoid the adverse learning and development outcomes which are often seen in children receiving later diagnoses.
The regional hospital will also hope to purchase a RETCAM (retinal scanning camera, neonatal) that takes digital photos of the structures inside the eye, allowing clinicians to scan for and manage eye disease.
LRH have said that purchasing a RETCAM for the region, and providing training to use it, will not only save children travelling long distances for regular testing, but will also increase regional capacity and reduce waiting times for patients.
In addition to improving the experience of paediatric patients in the emergency department and other wards, LRH will use the funds to upgrade play equipment and complete minor capital works, the donations will also focus on up-skilling the region’s paediatric nurses, by providing relevant paediatric training, purchasing simulation training equipment, and enabling secondments to the RCH.
Paediatric services in Barwon, Ballarat, Goulburn Valley, Bendigo and Latrobe will also benefit from the funds raised this year.
