5 minute read
Small things that make BIG changes in a person’s life
WORDS CATHARINE RETTER PHOTOS JENNIFER HARTICH
Joel, Katrina and Melanie are the HoTS team on the Coast.
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If you walked past ‘Vanessa’ in the street, you’d see a reasonably dressed person, neat, clean and tidy. So invisible is some homelessness that you couldn’t guess she’s been living in her car for some months now after her parents threw her out of home in a heartbreaking, last-ditch ‘tough love’ effort for their daughter.
Vanessa knows where she can sneak in for a free shower and do her hair in a mirror (sometimes it’s in sporting clubs or other public facilities), but her mental health is so fragile that when she arranges to meet the Coast & Country Primary Care team in their brightly coloured ex-ambulance van, this writer needed to keep a discreet distance of 50 metres or so to avoid spooking her and having her miss her appointment with the HoTS medical team (Health on the Streets).
Vanessa needs regular treatment for Diabetes 2 and for schizophrenia, and the team is not always confident she’ll turn up, so they try to meet on her terms.
The HoTS team in the CCPC van are registered nurse, Katrina Russell, and outreach worker, Melanie Bryan. Outreach team leader, Joel Smeaton, chooses to stay in the background on this occasion to avoid overwhelming Vanessa.
‘She won’t go to a GP so we’re always very happy when she turns up to meet us,’ says Joel. ‘So much of our work is building rapport with the clients and, through that, trust. Eighty-five per cent of people respond well to our approach. Sometimes they haven’t sought help just because they have outstanding fines they can’t pay, for fare evasion on trains or speeding tickets. We’re able to tell them that by engaging in a CCPC program, it can officially reduce their fines by about $250 per session.’
The CCPC van has cold storage for vaccinations, storage for sleeping bags, hand sanitisers, Coast Shelter personal care packs, and privacy for health assessments.
‘We work closely with other homeless organisations on the Coast, like Coast Shelter, the Uniting Doorways Program, the Department of Health, Catholic Care – they all have areas that they specialise in,’ adds Joel. ‘We regularly take blood samples to check for underlying blood-borne diseases. We check kidney, heart, lungs, iron levels, Hepatitis B and C. But we also do their NDIS applications, and try to find them accommodation.’
Because their homeless clients are least likely to visit a GP, the team also arranges for health checks that most of us take for granted: prostate checks, pap smears, mammograms, as well as psycho-social counselling.
Katrina is experienced in asking the right questions. She previously worked in the justice system in prisons, which has taught her not to ask if someone has a drug or alcohol problem
(they’re more than likely to say, ‘no’ for fear of reprisals). Instead, she’ll ask what medications they’ve been on, and that way she’ll learn what underlying health conditions they may have. Or she’ll ask if they’re injecting. Or even ask whether they’re sexually active so she knows to check for any sexually transmitted diseases.
Melanie can then spring into action, and get any paperwork under way on the spot.
‘In the past year, out of more than 1,000 clinical contacts the team has undertaken, 770 needed referrals to external supports,’ says Joel.
Our next stop with the van is to meet Troy, who has agreed to share his identity and to be photographed.
When the team first met Troy, he had been sleeping rough. Sydney to Newcastle trains were his preferred choice at night – they’re weatherproof, reasonably warm, and he felt safe under their security cameras.
Troy had the odds stacked against him, even as a child. His mother sent him away to live at Boystown when he was 12, and a year later she sent his younger brother away from home too. Troy had to leave Boystown when he left school, and turned to stealing cars and generally being a ‘bad kid’.
‘I went to Mt Penang [juvenile detention centre] four times,’ says Troy. ‘It wasn’t too bad; it meant I had a sort of family, and somewhere to sleep and be fed.
‘I had anxiety attacks, but I thought everyone was like that,’ he says. ‘So I never sought help.’
After he left prison, he met a girl and fell in love.
‘We broke up after six or seven years,’ says Troy. ‘And six weeks after I left her, she found out she was pregnant. I didn’t think I’d ever have kids, so that was life-changing news.’
He became involved in his new daughter’s life, changing nappies and loving being a dad. Another daughter came along just 11 months later.
‘It gave me a reason to change my life,’ says Troy. ‘The girls are now 24 and 25, and I haven’t been back in prison for 25 years.’
It wasn’t all easy going for Troy though, and when the CCPC team first met him, he was still suffering from depression and anxiety, and couldn’t cope with the idea of appointments, so was no longer under the care of a GP. Instead, he was self-medicating with alcohol, and had been injecting drugs years earlier.
‘The team got me some temporary accommodation in a motel in Long Jetty, which was so luxurious after the trains. They even drove me up there because I had no transport.’
His health checks came back with a positive Hepatitis C diagnosis and an inflamed liver. Troy was given a state-funded Hepatitis B vaccination, had a liver ultrasound, and went on a course of treatment for the Hepatitis C.
Troy also re-commenced his anti-depressants and, today, is about to get his eyes tested for glasses. A Woy Woy hairdresser has donated a voucher for a haircut, and Troy reckons he’ll look pretty handsome after all that.
Catholic Care was able to help him get accommodation in a bedsit with shared kitchen and bathroom facilities. Four months later, he is still happily there and is proud that he is clear of hepatitis.
Eleven days after first meeting the team, Troy was overwhelmed with the change in his life, and cried with happiness as he told them, ‘I feel so well cared for. I could never have done this alone.’ Soon, the team was crying, too.
He now has a three-year-old granddaughter and grins proudly when he says, ‘My two daughters live close enough so I get to see them, and I am able to babysit my beautiful little granddaughter. It’s changed my life. I’m pretty happy.’
