Women's Health Programs

Programs	Staff
Women's Health Coordination	Margo Moore.
Women's Health Promotion	Dianne Lane, Robyn Field, Balwinder Sidhu.
Women's Health Nurses	Veronica Kroon, Fatima Hartley-Shaik, Wendy Thomson, Mignon Aistrope. Fairfield and Bowral positions when filled.
Bilingual Community Education Program	Gladys Pineda, Helen Tourtouras.
Cervical Screening Program	Ann McCutcheon,
Mammography Screening Program

 

Women's Health Coordination The Women's Health Program is based on the SWSAHS Women's Health Strategic Plan 1996 – 1998. The plan is currently being reviewed and a new plan will be developed during 1999.  The Women's Health Coordinator oversees the implementation of the Strategic Plan and provides advice and support on women's health issues across the Area.  She is involved in policy development and advocacy around women's health issues and in research, planning, service development and evaluation. The Area Coordinator for Women's Health is Margo Moore who is based at Bankstown Community Health Centre. Women's Health Promotion Women's Health looks at the connections between women's role in society, our special needs as women and the different things that can affect our health throughout life.  Important issues include women's mental and emotional wellbeing, preventing violence against women, sexual and reproductive health, and the early detection of breast and cervical cancer.   Women's health aims to improve the health of all women and has special projects directed towards older women, Aboriginal women, women from non-English speaking backgrounds and socially isolated women. Women's health promotion works in partnership with other health and community based services to: Build healthy public policy around women's issues eg. increasing availability of childcare for women. Create supportive environments for health eg promoting public safety for women. Improve health literacy for women eg through the bilingual community education program in women’s health. Increase women’s participation in decision making in health eg. through involving women in organising and directing projects. Strengthen community networks eg through collaborative projects such as the Biyani Aboriginal Women’s Health project. Improve health services for women eg. through specific service provider training around women’s health issues, increasing the capacity of other services to positively impact on women’s health, undertaking research around women’s health issues, employing bilingual sessional workers in clinics and undertaking quality improvement activities with GPs. Improve access to health services for socially disadvantaged women eg. Koori Women’s & Children’s clinic at Miller. Women’s health promotion workers are Dianne Lane, based at Bankstown Community Health, Robyn Field (Aboriginal focus) based at Bankstown Community Health, Ana Isabel Zotelo based at Fairfield Community Health Centre and the workers involved in the Cervical Screening Program, the Bilingual Community Education Program and the Women's Health Nurses. Women’s Health Nurses Women’s health nurses are involved in Women's Health Promotion and provide clinical services through Well Women Clinics. These clinics are targeted towards older women, Aboriginal women, women of non-English speaking backgrounds and socially or geographically isolated women.  Services provided at the clinics include pap tests, breast checks, bladder control, menopause counselling, pregnancy tests, contraceptive advice, counselling and referral, sexual health and sexuality information.   The clinics are held both on a regular basis at different locations in the community and on an outreach basis in response to community need. Women’s health nurses are Veronica Kroon, Clinical Nurse Consultant based at Bankstown Community Health Centre, Fatima Hartley-Shaik, Clinical Nurse Consultant based at Ingleburn Community Health, Wendy Thomson, Clinical Nurse Specialist based at Wollondilly Health CentreThere are also Women’s Health Nurse positions at Bowral and Fairfield. Bilingual Community Education Program The goals of the Bilingual Community Education Program are to improve the health of non - English speaking background women by: building on women’s knowledge about preventive health care motivating women to take greater responsibility for their own health encouraging women to enjoy learning about health increasing women’s access to existing health services strengthening women’s social networks and support systems enhancing women’s self esteem, confidence and wellbeing affirming women’s positive cultural and individual experiences. The Program consists of: the community education program, New Healthy Women: An Introduction to Health for Women from Non-English-Speaking Backgrounds the Bilingual Community Educator Training Course to train Healthy Women group leaders, known as Bilingual Community Educators (BCEs) support and regular in-service training for Bilingual Community Educators training for support persons other community education programs specifically developed for women from non- English speaking backgrounds and to be facilitated by trained bilingual community educators: Changing Lives Keep Your Balance. Living with Choices. Women and Children Growing Together in a New Country. The BCE Program employs sessional educators to facilitate groups for women from diverse cultural backgrounds.  The groups are conducted in the first language of the participants and are run in community settings.  Childcare is provided if necessary. Many of the BCEs also have skills as bilingual research assistants. The Area Coordinator for the BCE Program is Helen Tourtouras, and the Training and Development Officer is Gladys Pineda.   Both are based at Bankstown Community Health Centre. Cervical Screening Program The Cervical Screening Program has been established in SWSAHS as part of the statewide program to increase recruitment of women to cervical screening. The program addresses barriers to screening and focuses strategies towards unscreened or under-screened women and the goals and strategies are detailed in the SWSAHS Cervical Screening Strategic Plan 1998 – 2000.   The program works in partnership with GPs and other service providers. Current projects include: implementing sector based recruitment activities at both local and area levels through joint cervical and breast screening recruitment committees at Bankstown, Liverpool, Campbelltown and Fairfield a quality improvement Practice Assessment Activity Project with the Divisions of GPs a media and community education campaign targeted towards Vietnamese women who are under-screened community development projects with socially disadvantaged women community education campaigns with women from culturally diverse backgrounds. The Area Cervical Screening Coordinator is Ruth Ferrington who is based at Bankstown Community Health Centre and the project officer is Balwinder Sidhu who is based at Hoxton Park Community Health Centre. Mammography Screening Program The Mammography Screening Program in SWSAHS is part of the BreastScreen Western screening program. Free mammography screening is available to all women 40 years and over and is especially targeted towards women aged 50-69. There are fixed screening units at Bankstown, Liverpool and Bowral and mobile vans cover Fairfield and the Macarthur area. The Women’s Health Program supports BreastScreen Western through special projects aimed to improve recruitment of under or unscreened groups of women. Sessional Bilingual Community Educators are employed to promote screening and assist women attending the screening. To make an appoint for a free breast x-ray phone: 13 20 50 or if you need an interpreter to make the bookings phone 13 14 50.