Nova Health Co. director Dr Trudi Beck and Murrumbidgee Primary Health Network CEO Narelle Mills officially open the new endometriosis clinic at Docker Street Medical Centre. Photo: Jarryd Rowley.
A new endometriosis clinic at Docker Medical Centre’s Nova Health Co. has officially opened its doors.
The centre is expecting a lot of traffic, as patients can visit the clinic without a referral from a GP or specialist, making it the first centre of its kind in the Murrumbidgee region.
Once patients begin their treatment plans, the medical staff at Nova Health Co. will work with them for 12 months, through regularly scheduled appointments every three to six weeks.
The centre has been funded for the next two and a half years by the Federal Government to provide endometriosis care.
Despite the extended funding, Nova Health Co. director Dr Trudi Beck has warned it will take time for the centre to properly adjust to the number of patients expected to use the facility and its resources.
“Clinics like NOVA Health and other general practices have been unofficially servicing this need for decades,” she said.
“The issue with it is that it affects women in such ways that the care needed to give them comprehensive management is really expensive, and lots of patients don’t have the financial resources to be able to do that.
“We expect there’ll be many women out there in the community who are initially going to be frustrated with us because we won’t be able to service the initial need.
“However, the experience of the existing clinics has been that within 12 to 18 months, you can start to catch up on that backlog of women who have lived without a diagnosis or without support, and you start to find that within that timeframe, you can meet the existing ongoing need or the upcoming need of the community.
“What this will allow us to do is, where we haven’t historically been able to service the way that the public health system might be able to, that lower-income group of patients.
“We now look forward to being able to provide them with really gold standard, evidence-based care that’s not related to their postcode or their income bracket.”
Murrumbidgee Primary Health Network CEO Narelle Mills said the clinic would finally allow local patients who suffered from pelvic-related issues to receive the care they deserved.
“Nationally, it’s a significant issue, and the Murrumbidgee region is no different in that respect,” she said.
“Being in a regional and rural area, our access to these types of services is a lot more difficult.
“So it’s been fantastic to be able to establish this in Wagga. Part of the establishment of the clinic has been to be able to make sure that people across the Murrumbidgee region can get access.
“This is something that we will and have been working with Nova Health on to ensure the model has some outreach component to it.”
