Capital Health Network

To support local First Nations people with chronic disease, CHN partners with local organisations to provide care coordination services and funding for certain approved medical equipment to eligible First Nations people with chronic disease. The Integrated Team Care (ITC) Program assists First Nations people who require coordinated, multidisciplinary care to access timely and culturally appropriate health care and is funded by the Australian Government’s Indigenous Australians’ Health Programme.

As the ACT Primary Health Network, CHN has partnered with Grand Pacific Health to support clients who have been referred to them through mainstream GPs and Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health and Community Services to provide the program for their clients. Over 1,800 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were assisted through the ITC program in the last year.

Testimonials

Case study: “I couldn’t afford to keep living that way”

Ashleigh* (not her real name) is a local Aboriginal woman living with chronic illness who was referred to the ITC Program at Grand Pacific Health (GPH) through her GP. Ashleigh was struggling to afford specialist visits and as a result wasn’t managing too well. She suffers from sleep apnoea and was using a 10-year-old mask with her Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machine – held together with sticky tape, which also had tubes that contained mould. Ashleigh’s other conditions included an injured foot, reflex sympathetic nervous dystrophy, chronic pain, asthma, major depression and anxiety. “I couldn’t afford to keep living that way,” said Ashleigh.

Her Support Worker Taylor, a Registered Nurse with GPH, helped get Ashleigh a referral to a private pain specialist and GPH assisted with funding this. GPH’s ITC Program also paid for a new mask and tubes for her CPAP machine, which means she is able to use the equipment and sleep through the night. An MRI revealed how far her dystrophy condition had degenerated in her right foot meaning specialists can now target that effectively, and she was also assisted to obtain a Mental Health Care Plan to access affordable psychological services.

“Taylor has been wonderful, open and honest about the services GPH can and cannot assist with. She has helped to connect me with services I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to find or afford. She also came with me to appointments, which sometimes meant wiping dribble off the floor from my service dog who comes with me to help manage my anxiety in public,” said Ashleigh.

“Ashleigh was in a really bad place with her health management when I met her and was clearly struggling financially with her medications as well. Seeing her so much happier and healthier now is why I got into health care,” said Taylor.

Source: Real Stories 2019, Grand Pacific Health