Persistent Pain Clinic celebrate first year milestone at MATSICHS

Consumers at the Persistent Pain Clinic at Caboolture

The Persistent Pain Clinic partnership at The Moreton Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Health Service (Moreton ATSICHS) recently celebrated its first year of outreach care with 75 patients accessing the service for management of chronic pain.

The Moreton-based clinic was formed with the idea of expanding pain treatment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients closer to home, with care previously provided at Herston at the Tess Cramond Pain and Research Centre.

The service has now contributed to 10,000 kilometres of travel saved for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients who are able to receive treatment more conveniently.

Director of the Tess Cramond Pain and Research Centre RBWH, based at STARS, Paul Gray said that pain can be difficult to treat but the goal is always providing support for management.

“What we know that for some people it’s hard to take away that pain completely. What we try to do is provide support to patients to cope with and manage their pain better than before,” he said.

Caboolture clinic in action

The expanded service was made possible through a partnership with the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health (IUIH) at Caboolture.

“Currently we have an outreach clinic at Moreton ATSICHS in James Street and hopefully in the future we’ll have more outreach clinics,” he said.

“Patients are referred to the clinic by their GP and our Nurse Navigators then support the patient journey.”

Patient feedback has been extremely positive, with patients attesting not only to saved travel time – but feeling well cared for and culturally safe.