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TWH Developments Melinda can attest to the substantial deficiencies which are systemic within the health industry that have also been identified by Professor Hal Swerissen, Dean of Health Sciences at Latrobe University and member of the Federal Minister’s External Reference Group for the Development of a National Primary Health Strategy. In his address for the COAG meeting in April 2010 Prof Swerissen writes, “Primary health services are disorganised, fragmented and dominated by small scale, general practices with little capacity to provide or manage comprehensive care.... People with complex and chronic conditions are forced to navigate a confusing mix of care provided by general practice, specialists, hospitals, home based providers and rehabilitation services. Far too often, no one has overall responsibility for co-ordinating these services for the patient. All too often the patients GP is sidelined into a peripheral role. As a result patients often have poorer health outcomes than ought to be the case, including unnecessary distress, disability and death. They have time consuming, costly and inefficient experiences. In many cases they use more services than necessary and avoidable hospital admissions increase.” It was this experience that inspired the development of ‘The Wellness House’ concept and purpose built facility in Orange NSW. The Wellness House currently offers the services of a pharmacy, cafe & health store, 3 doctors, dentistry, 2 osteopaths, 2 psychologists, dietician, occupational therapist, acupuncture & chinese medicine, personal fitness trainer, natural medicine, sports remedial massage therapy, chiropractor & applied kinesiologist, and chronic care nurse. The aim is to ensure the uniqueness of each person particularly with chronic or complex health care needs may be recognised and supported to enhance both their healthcare and quality of life. The networking of practitioners from the conventional, allied and other complementary services in a co-ordinated framework and setting epitomises the Integrative Medicine approach that will help people with chronic illness by actively supporting the entire person, creating pathways through the maze and having a hand to hold on their journey. The health policies of both state and federal government are evolving from the vast amount of literature that now exists which recommends and supports this framework as set out in the Health One State initiative, GP Super Clinic aims and objectives as well as the new National Primary Health Care Reform strategy. It is the aim of TWH Developments to take this concept and adapt it to other towns and cities so they too can evolve their health services into an integrated setting that provides the physical requirements, supportive business models and systems to facilitate a co-ordinated framework.
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from the personal experience of Melinda King, founder of The Wellness House and her journey as a carer for eight years for her husband who died from cancer at the age of 35 years. Throughout his treatment it became clear that their information and support needs were not met by the current acute care system. In addition to this, any advice in regard to complementary therapies was not only lacking but was in some way obstructed.