The award-winning HealthAccess Virtual and Home Care, a service of the Healthy Communities Foundation Australia (the Foundation), has picked up another gong last night when the Foundation won the 2024 National HESTA Nursing and Midwifery Awards as Outstanding Organisation of the Year. The award recognises excellence in supporting nurses as clinical leaders in health care in Australia.
Residential Aged Care Virtual Care Nurse, Glenda Southwell, was on hand to share in the celebration of the Foundation’s outstanding nurses.
Foundation CEO, Mark Burdack, said: “This award is a credit to all the hard work and commitment shown by our nursing teams across our virtual, home, mobile and community based care services.
“Elderly Australians living in residential care facilities are some of Australia’s most vulnerable people. Yet, there has been a rapid decline in the number of GPs able to provide care to residents with complex needs. This has not only created fear among residents at a time of vulnerability, but also hampered the capacity of Residential Aged Care Facilities to admit new residents due to the lack of admitting doctors.
“The HealthAccess Virtual and Home Care service is an initiative of the Foundation when it became clear that the government was not able to address the decline in doctors servicing aged care residents. Our goal was to restore confidence for residents who could not access local primary health care by ensuring that they could receive high quality care from a team of doctors and nurses working in a team.
“The service now supports more than 600 aged care residents across a dozen locations, ensuring residents can age safely close to family and friends in their own community.
“We have seen all too often how rural and remote residents have been wrenched from what is often the only place they know as home at an extremely vulnerable time, because the local aged care service cannot source adequate health care and has been forced to close. This is just wrong. The treatment of older people in the Australian health system remains a challenge despite the Royal Commission.
“Our nurses co-designed and delivered an innovative approach that provides access to high quality GP care, with local nurses supervised to deliver comprehensive treatment locally.
“Our nurse led teams are bringing health care back to older people, demonstrating respect for older Australians who have helped to build this nation.
“It is very rare for aged care and rural nurses to get recognition on a national stage for their work, and I would like to thank HESTA Super, Me Bank, Medibank and the other award sponsors, and the jury of academic and industry peers, for recognising the tireless work of nurses and their role in returning health to local communities” said Mr Burdack.
For more information call Mark Burdack on 0418974988.
Hear more from Roie Caine, Practice Manager and Nurse, Collarenebri Medical Centre in the Collarenebri Community Hub: