Message from the STARS Executive Director

Surgical, Treatment and

Rehabilitation Service

Staff Update

Helen Boocock

Tomorrow (Thursday 17 March 2022) is National Close the Gap Day. This day acknowledges the Close the Gap Campaign, which aims to close the health and life expectancy gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-Indigenous Australians within a generation.

The health status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is significantly poorer than non-Indigenous people. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have poorer self-assessed health, a higher prevalence of long-term conditions and an increased burden of disease, when compared to the non-Indigenous population. Just last week, ABC’s Four corners ran a story that highlights the issues of health equity and access to care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Watch the ‘Heart Failure’ story here.

Acknowledging National Close the Gap Day is an important opportunity to send a clear message that we value health equality as a fundamental right for all and remain committed to targets to Close the Gap in life expectancy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Through our Better Together and Reconciliation Action Plans, and our Indigenous Health Service and Cultural Capability teams, we are working hard at STARS to do our part to close the gap on health equity. Our building was designed to be culturally safe and inclusive, and we are actively working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients and their families to deliver care that is person-centred, culturally responsive and improves health outcomes.

One example of this at STARS is the Better Together Medication Access Scheme (BTMA), which has assisted in reducing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ burden of diseases by providing access to prescribed discharge medication from any Metro North Pharmacy with no out of pocket expenses.

In 2021 we:

provided 95 identifying inpatients with discharge medications
provided a total of 219 medications subsided to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inpatients
made a positive impact to 25% of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inpatients through the BTMA scheme.

In April, the Metro North Health Equity Strategy will be launched, which describes our commitment to drive health equity and eliminate institutional racism both for our staff and patients across the public health system.

I highly encourage you all to visit the website for further details on the timeline, priority areas and frequently asked questions. You can also provide feedback and recommendations via the new Yarning Hub.

Please also take some time to have a look at the following resources too:

Best wishes,

Helen Boocock
A/Executive Director
Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS)