The Victorian Government and the Department of Education, are making sure young people receive the health support, advice and treatment they need to reach their full potential in disadvantaged areas to provide medical advice and health care to those students most in need.
The Doctors in Secondary School (DiSS) program runs in the school setting in a purpose built building with a general practitioner (GP) and practice nurse four hours a week, during the school term.
Lalor North Secondary College has over 500 students from a diverse gender, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, where many students may not be living with their parents. Plenty Road Medical Centre had been successfully servicing the DiSS clinic at Lalor North Secondary College since the beginning of the program in October 2017, seeing on average of six students per week. Due to COVID, the clinics closed for a short period and the Telehealth DiSS clinics commenced. Over this time, students became disengaged and numbers started to decline. As well as this, Plenty Road and the DiSS clinic finished at the end of Term 1 2022, which left the students at Lalor North Secondary College with a gap to fill.
Fortunately, since the start of Term 2, 2023, EMPHN are very fortunate to have Dr Leila Byrne and RN Alison Duffin from headspace Glenroy join the DiSS team and build relationships with the students and begin to help those in need. Both Dr Byrne and Alison also work at another school in the NWMPHN catchment, so they very experienced and have a passion in this field and we are excited to have them on board.
Pictured: Timothy Cottrell (Principal LNSC), Lisa Nottelmann (Business Development Manager, headspace), Emily Goddard, Di McConchie, Shahana Shiels (School Program Lead, LNSC), and Dr Leila Byrne (headspace Glenroy).