Funding disparity disadvantages rural residents

La Trobe University

Rural health researchers at La Trobe University say the funding disparity between rural and metropolitan Australians is “inequitable and unfair” and are calling for greater investment in rural health research.

Professor Jane Mills, Dean of the La Trobe Rural Health School, co-authored an opinion piece with Dr Leesa Hooker and Dr Fiona Burgemeister.

They say the discrepancy is particularly concerning as rural residents already have poorer health than their urban counterparts.

Professor Mills said new models of health care are need in rural areas to address the inequities in outcomes.

“We already know that ‘what works’ in metropolitan areas does not automatically translate to rural and remote areas due to issues of setting and scale,” Professor Mills said.

“Funding research that goes beyond the remit of hospitals and enables the testing of novel place-based approaches, to rural health and health care in partnership with a wide range of industry partners, must be part of the solution to reducing the inequity gap.”

It is estimated that only 2.4 per cent of National Health and Medical Research Council funded projects are aimed specifcally at improving the health of Australians living in rural and remote areas.

The La Trobe Rural Health School (LRHS) demonstrates the value of investment in rural health and its meaningful impact on communities.

The LRHS has used small grants to test new approaches on the delivery of healthcare with a range of industry partners.

In Mildura, La Trobe has partnered with Sunraysia Community Health to transform community health outcomes in various projects, such as extending the reach of place-based research.

La Trobe is working with McMaster University in Canada as part of a worldwide trial to introduce community paramedicine. In just a short amount of time, the trial has expanded to fve different locations and engaged with more than 100 clients.

Dr Hooker, a rural nurse and midwife and LRHS Dean of Research Engagement, said available data from various projects has shown improved patient satisfaction, health outcomes and reduced hospital admissions.

“While these projects have often been funded by small grants, evidence shows they are having a signifcant, meaningful and lasting impact on communities,” Dr Hooker said.

“The research partnerships have led to ongoing trusted relationships with industry providers.”

Emerson – thought’s eternal inferno-ist…

by Nigel Dawe

Lismore’s Roger Manby fnally gets his life back, 18 months after the deluge

In the early morning of February 28, 2022, Roger Manby was forced onto the roof of his home to escape foodwaters surging through the frst foor of his home.

After 18 months of repairs, Mr Manby has moved back to Casino Street, South Lismore and he’s delighted to be home.

foors while providing him with a bedroom at his home at Eltham, several kilometres from Lismore.

THE art, discipline, act, or magic – whatever you’d like to call it – of truly memorable writing starts, rises, or outright flounders at the very altar of thought imbued with clarity, albeit the concise combination of imagination and words caught by the person that bothers to record them.

In over 30-years of reading as if my life depended on it (and on numerous occasions it has), I’ve yet to encounter a more deeply appealing wordsmith than America’s founding Godfather of thought –Ralph Waldo Emerson. The purity and clear prodigious flow of his writing is as sublime as it is unsurpassed; there is a non-discernible separation between his thoughts, calm nature and words that elevate him way beyond the pale of anyone who considers themself cerebral.

Intriguingly, Emerson passed away in 1882, four years before New York’s ‘Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World’ (as originally named) was unveiled by then President Cleveland who stated the statue’s “stream of light shall pierce the darkness of ignorance and man’s oppression until Liberty enlightens the world.” If this was the expressed aim of New York’s grand damme, then it was also arguably the achieved outcome of Emerson’s towering legacy to both literature and life.

The Nobel Prizewinning Englishman Bertrand Russell once chimed, “Intellect, except at white heat, is very apt to be trivial,” and the overwhelming essence and content of Emerson’s output are white hot reckonings devoid of all triviality; reckonings that remain as pressing, meaningful, and particular today as they were back when this Bostonian ruled the intellectual roost.

Fittingly, a biography of Emerson written in the 1990s by Robert D. Richardson was titled The Mind on Fire, which is an incredibly apt way to describe the ever-blazing thought patterns of this mercurial individual.

Since my early 20s I don’t think there has been a time that Emerson’s writings (which mainly comprise of essays, speeches and journals) have ever been far from my reach, they’ve pretty much accompanied me every step of the way.

Like a big brother, or as philosophy’s most brooding and perhaps far-reaching figure Friedrich Nietzsche once mentioned of Emerson – that he was his “soul brother”; this being precisely how anyone remotely acquainted with Ralph Waldo’s body of work can be excused for considering him. Open any page of his collected works at random and you’ll be met with some morsel of thought that directly turns the tide of your day.

So ‘uplifting’ was Emerson’s approach to life that his genre of writing and thinking is actually known as Transcendentalism. As such, you cannot come away from reading him feeling any less than you were before, in fact – you close the pages of his work feeling absolutely refreshed, if not raised way beyond the confines of your own time.

As if to summarise his personal and unprecedented inclinations, Emerson once noted, “The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide people by showing them facts amidst appearances…The true preacher can be known by this, that they deal out to the people their life – life passed through the fire of thought.”

“I don’t know where else I’d want to go – this is where I want to be,” he said.

“I think I went to 65 different countries when I was in the Navy by my count, so I’ve done my moving around.”

Mr Manby, a HammondCare At Home client, now has a home reftted with new walls and foors and a new kitchen and bathroom.

He had limited insurance cover, so he relied plenty on family and friends.

His son Jay, a local artist, provided much hands-on support building new walls and

The HammondCare Foundation pitched in with some fnancial backing. Mr Manby was one of 11 HammondCare At Home clients who had their homes inundated. Another fve HammondCare At Home staff who had their homes damaged also were helped.

The Foundation, the charity fundraising arm of HammondCare, raised $85,000 in 2022 specifcally to assist clients and staff impacted by the foods. Another $10,000 was donated to the Lismore Flood Appeal.

Mr Manby’s son Rory, who recently relocated to the US for work, passed on a near-new fridge and large screen TV. Mr Manby says about his appliances: “I’ve now got better stuff than I’ve ever had before”.

A new air conditioning system with its compressor wisely perched high and dry on the roof has been installed for a bargain price. Bathroom tiles were leftovers from a supermarket contract.

“For 18 months I’ve been living in one room at my son’s place. I could stretch out on the righthand side of the bed and the left-hand side and that was it,” he said.

“Now I have two bedrooms, a lounge room and a separate dining room and a kitchen.

What more could you ask for?”

“This now feels palatial.”

The ground foor of his home will be left in an unrenovated state for now. Jay has plans to make it a work studio.

The impact of the food was felt elsewhere in his family. His daughter Heather is participating in the buyback after her home on Ballina Road was overwhelmed by the disaster.

HammondCare At

Home Northern Rivers Regional Manager Jodi Peel dropped by to see Roger at Casino St yesterday. Already his valued memorabilia from years of a career at sea is back hanging back on the walls.

“Listening to Roger share stories of his time in the Navy warms my heart. It’s great to see Roger happy,” Ms Peel said.

HammondCare CEO Mike Baird met with Mr Manby in September when HammondCare At Home opened its new regional headquarters in Lismore.

“Everyone at HammondCare wishes Mr Manby the very best as he settles back into his home after having endured so much,” Mr Baird said.

“We are proud to continue to support him with his needs.”

To learn more about HammondCare At Home, go to https:// www.hammond.com.au/ care/home-care-services