From our executive

May 2020 edition e-news: A message to members from our Board Chair

: Thursday 30 April 2020

A message for our members

by Vicki Pearce

Chair, Board of Directors

Bendigo Community Health Services

On behalf of the Board of Directors I'd like to thank you for reading our new There For You e-news edition.

This is part of our commitment to keeping our members and the community up-to-date with all the happenings at Bendigo Community Health Services.

We're very proud of what our organisation and staff are achieving in continuing to deliver 'essential' services during this Coronavirus time.

There has been so much work done in such a short time to ensure we can safely continue to care for the community while keeping the safety of our clients and staff as the number one priority.

Our staff continue to turn up for work each day at the Eaglehawk site while others work behind the scenes in support at our Kangaroo Flat site and from home which is a very new experience for them.

Our doctors and health professionals have embraced Telehealth to ensure we can continue to help clients seeking our help either by phone or video link. The doctor then makes a decision on whether the client needs a face-to-face appointment at our Eaglehawk site. We've found Telehealth is being embraced by our clients and while some have concerns they are not actually seeing the doctor face-to-face they understand this is being done to look after their own health and that of our staff as we experience Stage 3 'lock down' restrictions in Victoria.

The board has supported our CEO Gerard Jose in taking a seat on the City of Greater Bendigo Pandemic Relief and Recovery Committee.

: Friday 23 December 2016

By Kim Sykes

CEO, BCHS

It’s been a busy end to 2016 for Bendigo Community Health Services as we prepare our organisation to deliver much-needed and sustained change in the area of disadvantage in our community.

Much of the hard work around restructuring our organisation to ensure we are best placed to tackle the cycles of disadvantage in Bendigo has been completed and we are excited about the work we will be doing in 2017.

The restructure is just one step in planning how we will deliver our programs in the future to best support our community and to ensure our organisation remains healthy in an increasingly competitive environment of service delivery and funding.

As the year draws to a close we farewell some long-serving staff who have made great contributions to our organisation. They are moving on to new and exciting employment and we have no doubt they will bring great knowledge and experience to their new organisations. We wish them every success.

We will welcome three new directors in January who are keen to help BCHS achieve our goal of challenging disadvantage in Bendigo and leading our organisation into this new and exciting era.

It was fantastic to get the keys to our new kidzspace building in Kangaroo Flat this week. We will start moving our child and family services into the building in January to deliver a hub and service model which will be a first for regional Australia. Stay tuned for a big open day in the New Year!

Big changes and opportunities are coming and this will be exciting and very rewarding.

We thank all our consumers and loyal partners for the ongoing support through 2016 – you are vital to our success; perhaps we don’t say ‘thank you’ quite enough but we greatly value your trust in us.

Finally, on behalf of all at Bendigo Community Health Services we wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a happy and safe New Year.

CEO SPOT: Exciting times ahead for Bendigo Community Health Services

: Friday 9 December 2016

By Kim Sykes, CEO,

Bendigo Community Health Services

I hope that you are warm, comfortable and well while reading our first BCHS quarterly newsletter.

We’ve some exciting times ahead as we strive to deliver our new Strategic Directions, including making a positive difference to the health and wellbeing of those living with disadvantage and sharing more with you about what we do and listening to your ideas about how we can do it better.

This great city is a fabulous place in which to live, but not for everyone. We have people living in some of the most disadvantaged areas in the country. And we have very strong evidence that this greatly increases the risk of poor health outcomes.

Not only are people from very low income families more likely to die earlier, they are more likely to spend a lot more of their years living with a disability.

They also have a much greater chance of dropping out of school, not being able to get a job, or getting only poorly paid work, eating poorly, turning to alcohol or drugs and being in trouble at school or with police.

This kind of future shouldn’t be determined by how much your Mum or Dad earns but we have generations of people living in pockets of the City of Greater Bendigo where this is the case. Good people watching their kids grow without the opportunities and hopes most of us take for granted.

We’ve got to change that path and we can.

Very targeted programs and a real focus to address health inequity can make generational change, especially programs designed for children.

This will take effort from many and BCHS is determined to make this a priority.

Our new Kidzspace will have an important role to play in ensuring that all kids have the chance of a healthy start.