Wed,May,2018
On Friday 11 May, the fabulous charity Girls Got Heart held their second annual fundraising luncheon, ‘Hearts on the River’, raising an impressive, and much needed $15,000+ for Heart of Australia.
These funds will go directly into supporting vital specialist medical services that the Heart Trucks deliver to regional Queenslanders every day.
For those unfamiliar with the Girls Got Heart story, in 2017 two everyday Brisbane mums, Rebecca East and Keely Mancini, attended a fundraising event at Scott and Anne-Maree Attwooll’s property ‘Uralla’ in Meandarra, around 360 kilometres west of Brisbane. They organised the event in memory of their friend, Graeme Bridle, who they lost suddenly due to heart failure.
This fantastic event saw 300 guests from far and wide converge in the scorching heat to celebrate a life well lived that ended too soon, and to raise funds for Heart of Australia to expand the reach of its mobile specialist clinic.
For Bec and Keely, the event highlighted the life and death reality that rural and regional individuals and families face every day. But inspired by the spirit of the community and the work that Dr Gomes and the Heart of Australia were doing, Bec and Keely resolved to combine their love for cycling with their desire to make a difference for people in rural Queensland. Girls Got Heart was born.
The inaugural endurance ride in 2017 raised $120,000. These funds have helped fund the building of Heart Truck 3, a new smaller truck currently under construction. This truck will allow us to better respond to high demand peaks and patient overflow, expand the different services we offer, and step up our community engagement program.
On behalf of the entire HoA team, our patients, their families and the regional communities we support we’d like to thank Keely, Rebecca, the 2017 riders & support crew, and everyone who attended the luncheon.
Together, we are changing the health outcomes for people in rural Queensland.
Tue,May,2018
Yorkshire lad and now a “fixture” of Heart of Australia and its specialist medicine delivery to the Queensland bush, 36-year-old Dr Roly Hilling-Smith reckons he’s living the dream.
In fact, in conversation he says earnestly that it would be his dream to be always on the road, using his skills in cardiology in the bush where, he says, he’s “constantly touched” by the gratitude of Bush people for the work of Heart of Australia.
But the dream might be a way off yet for the youthful father of three boys – aged five, four and one – whose “day job” with the Brisbane-based Queensland Cardiology Group keeps him busy with City and Redlands district public and private hospital patients between time each month on the Heart of Australia truck.
Roly says he was not a “medical family” – his father (now retired) and mother (involved in disability learning) and his younger brother – chose careers in teaching. “For me, the sciences, leading me into medicine, seemed my only choice,” Roly says.
After five years of medical school and two years of doctor internship in Edinburgh, Roly says he followed friends to Western Australia where he met his wife, Alison, from Newcastle in NSW, who was in emergency nursing in the same Perth hospital.
After four years in Perth, Roly spent three years in cardiology in Melbourne before relocating to Brisbane.
He heard about Heart of Australia Founder, Dr Rolf Gomes and his groundbreaking specialist medicine travelling road clinics – “and it all sounded very good”.
Of working with Dr Gomes, Roly says: “I love it. It’s not the kind of thing someone from Yorkshire would usually experience.”
“It might sound strange, but you can actually help more people in a place like Dalby than you can in city clinics. And … it’s amazing how friendly and how grateful the people are.”
And the Hockey? He found that through English friends and the WA-based Australian Institute of Hockey during his time in Perth and he’s a regular player for Carina-based Easts club in Brisbane.
Mon,May,2018
It’s taken a while; almost four years since the launch of the Heart of Australia clinic-on-wheels project, but just over a fortnight ago in Toowoomba, we connected with older Queenslanders through the remarkable University of the Third Age.
And it was a memorable hookup, even if a while in coming. Heart of Australia founder and cardiologist, Dr Rolf Gomes, found himself facing a keenly-interested audience of 159 ladies and gentlemen – later-life students and partners.
It was part of a U3A “Dynamic Life” guest speaker program and according to the local president for eight years, Mrs Rhonda Weston, there were two clear issues for the audience – “the passion and determination of Dr Gomes, along with the fact that he (effectively) started Heart of Australia” all on his own.
Meanwhile, Dr. Gomes says he was “overwhelmed and humbled by the interest and sense of welcome and support for the project” at the U3A meeting.
For the record: Mrs Weston and her husband David left just days after the meeting to take part in an international U3A conference in China as Australian representatives.
Thu,May,2018
Despite droughts and flooding rains, the volunteers of the Outback Festival in Winton, Queensland, have raised $22,000 to the Heart of Australia program at the Sunset Extravaganza Sunset Dinner attended by over 300+ people held during the September 2017 festival at the Bladensburg National Park.
“The Sunset Charity Dinner was a major fundraising activity of the program and exemplifies this small town’s commitment to its fellow Australians”, explains Festival coordinator and Winton resident, Robyn Stephens OAM.
“We were able to raise $22,000 for the Heart of Australia clinic”, said festival coordinator Robyn Stephens OAM, “This foundation was identified as country Australians are currently 44% more likely than city dwellers to die from a heart attack”.
The evening featured the charity dinner also featured a re-enactment of the original charge of the Light Horse Brigade celebrating the Centenary of the Charge at Beersheba by the Qld. Light Horse Historical Troops.
“We acknowledged that of the 519 men who enlisted from the district during WW1 approximately one-fifth of these men enlisted into the Australian Light Horse Regiment, “said Australian Country music singer and MC for the evening, Tania Kernaghan.
The generous donation of $22,000 was delivered on Saturday 3rd March in Winton by Outback Festival committee members who made a special cheque presentation to Dr Rolf Gomes, Brisbane cardiologist and founder of ‘Heart of Australia’ whilst he was in Winton.
“We acknowledge and are thankful to the lovely township of Winton and all the supporters at the Sunset Dinner and especially the hard work of the coordinators and volunteers of the festival who have endured the hardship of the outback with the recent significant weather events making their lives so much more difficult. We truly appreciate the support of small towns and especially Winton which is a much-loved destination of many of our team of Doctors”. Thank you, Winton – Heart of Australia is touched by your heartfelt efforts. We look forward to enjoying many more glorious sunsets in your town!
Wed,May,2018
The Heart of Australia GP Education Program provides rural and regional doctors with the opportunity to access the latest research, evidence, and advances in specialist areas of medicine – direct from the experts. Our GP Education sessions are held in the local communities we visit, at no cost to the local GPs.
Our experts spend the evening showcasing the latest research, advances and cases to local GPs, emphasising those most relevant to improving patient outcomes and excellence in care. Perhaps most importantly, they make themselves available for local doctors to ask individual and direct questions that are most pertinent to the patients they are currently supporting in their community.
In 2017 we held 14 GP Education sessions in towns across regional Queensland.
Our GP Education events are a vital part of the overall Heart of Australia program, which is dedicated to delivering positive outcomes for the regional communities we visit and support. Just as our patients face the challenges of distance when accessing specialist health services, General Practitioners in regional Australia have very limited opportunities to access professional development relating to specialist fields of medicine, compared to their city cousins.
Heart of Australia’s Associate Prof Karam Kostner, in partnership with Bayer Australia, held a very informative evening in Emerald in April with a group of local GP’s who were provided with up to date knowledge and insight into Difficult Cases in Cardiology. The evening, attended by seven local health professionals, and held at the Marabou Tavern was a great success – thanks to Professor Kostner and Bayer Australia for your support of Heart of Australia’s GP Education programme.
We remain committed to supporting the community, and their local doctors, in breaking down the barrier of distance when it comes to equitable access to high-quality specialist healthcare.
