By Shamsiya Hussainpoor
Each Community Health Services is celebrating its fiftieth birthday, marking five decades of providing essential healthcare and support to local communities.
The not-for-profit but for-purpose organisation aims to deliver a wide-range of health and support services to improve lives and strengthen communities, including housing, counselling, child, youth and family, disability, and community mental health services across Australia.
Planning a party is tough but coordinating a fiftieth celebration for over 1500 healthcare workers spread across 50 sites nationwide feels nearly impossible.
EACH executive director engagement and advocacy Jayne Dullard said it couldn’t afford to fly everyone into a central location for a big party, but the celebration had to go on.
“We came up with the idea of a bus, painted in our 50 years of EACH logo, very bright yellow and purple, very noticeable,” she said.
“The bus went from site to site, all the way from Ipswich in Queensland through to Bega Valley in New South Wales, and then back across to Victoria, where most of our sites are, and celebrate all the way.”
EACH oral health team leader Siv Powell is one of the people travelling in the bus to provide services for the community.
She helps organise the delivery of any dental programs that falls outside of the fixed clinic, this includes free dental services to Victorian public primary and secondary schools.
“One of the most joyful things about my job is meeting the children and delivering them a smile they deserve,” Ms Powell said.
She’s passionate about free access to health care for everyone, especially those who cannot afford it, because it is a fundamental human right, not a privilege she said.
“We have three exam vans and three treatment trucks at the moment, and they’re booked back-to-back going from school to school, and depending on how many children sign up for the program, we do check-ups and any dental treatment they require in the treatment trucks, and then we move on to the next school,”
“It’s a full calendar year in every single school term, we are servicing schools here in the Knox area, in Yarra Ranges and in Maroondah.”
From the start of August, the much-loved purple bus has been on the road, spreading the joys of decades of services to communities across the country.
Out of the 50 sites, based on location and the number of staff that worked there, 11 sites were selected for the celebratory bus visits.
The wheels on the bus travelled from Ipswich to Port Macquarie, continued on to Coffs Harbour, rolled through Goulburn, visited Kingston in Canberra, headed to Bega, and finally reached Victoria, with Ringwood head office as its last stop.
“The bus will arrive in Ringwood at 2pm on Tuesday, then at 2.30pm, all our sites across the country will be having their own little parties virtually,” Ms Dullard said.
“The feedback from staff has been incredible, when we first tried to get people to drive the bus, people were a bit reluctant. They weren’t sure what it would mean, but as soon as they started to see photos and videos, everyone wanted to be part of it – it’s been very fun and very bonding.”
Ms Dullard said the celebration is significant for many reasons, with one of the biggest being is marking 50 years since Australia’s 21st Prime Minister, Edward Gough Whitlam, established EACH Community Health to bridge the gap between GPs and hospitals.
“Most community health has died away in other states but it’s still a strong part of the health sector here,” she said.
“It’s critical for keeping people out of the hospital, especially for those who have chronic conditions or are worried and can’t get in to see a GP, they tend to end up in an ambulance or in an emergency department – it’s horrible for those individuals and it’s expensive for the healthcare system, and we see that we can play an even bigger role in being that missing middle of the healthcare system, working directly with people in their communities.”
The organisation delivers over 150 services across different states, from dental services, general practitioners, consultations, nurse visits, and much more.
“We do intervention for little children who may have a learning disability or other kind of disability, we provide NDIS, funded services for people with disabilities and we have a very, very big mental health practice including adult mental health and also youth mental health,” Ms Dullard said.
“Most people who come to EACH receive their services for free, and that’s important, because they wouldn’t be able to afford them otherwise, and that’s why we’re here.”
“A lot of Australians, for reasons of class, ethnicity, violence or many other factors, have health conditions they can’t do anything about, they’re not unwell because of their own choices, but rather they’re unwell because of external circumstances and because of the structure they live in and we’re here to help plug that gap and help those people to find their own power to live better lives.”
