St John WA medical comes to Kambalda
St John and the Shire of Coolgardie are finalising plans to provide a GP service in Kambalda with the practice to open for business on Thursday 15 November 2018, filling a void created in the town last June.
Shire President Malcolm Cullen said the Shire of Coolgardie was delighted when St John answered the call from the local community and the Shire to investigate the feasibility of providing a doctor in the town and other medical services.
“A Memorandum of Understanding was signed with an intent to reflect the goodwill of both parties and their respective best intentions to work collaboratively to deliver an Integrated, Coherent, Quality Primary Health Service to the community and we are confident St John will deliver this service,” he said.
St John Health Services Director, Phil Holman said after much community consultation, planning and financial forecasting St John is optimistic we can implement a viable and sustainable primary health service that will benefit the community long into the future.
“We have done our due diligence to make sure we can deliver a comprehensive model of health care that will allow for future population growth and business expansion,” Mr Holman said.
The service will run from the site previously used as a GP practice, inside the WA Country Health building on Gumnut Place.
“St John have secured the GP services of the previously employed doctor which will make for an easy transition for the patients accessing the service as many will already have established a rapport with the doctor and the doctor will be well versed in their medical history. That’s a win for our community,” Mr Cullen said.
“St John Medical will also be supplemented by a range of additional St John volunteer services to build a resilient community and these will be staged to complement growth in St John Medical services and to meet the community’s needs.
“St John has been running medical services in Perth for the last two years and have used this as the basis for the advanced model being introduced in Kambalda.
“St John Medical will utilise telemedicine with a metropolitan-based GP pool to build capacity and each of these doctors will undertake an immersive experience in the Shire,” Mr Holman said.
St John has a long track record in Kambalda. It has run a volunteer-led ambulance service for many decades and in 2017/18 the service performed more than 100 cases.
