#CEOdesk

On Saturday, 17 August we held our first Conference - Rethinking Mental Health: New Approaches in Primary Care.

Held in the Blue Mountains, the conference brought together experts from around Australia to provide new insights on the impact of mental illness in our region and talk about new ways to manage mental health in primary care.

This World No Tobacco Day is an important reminder that healthcare professionals play an important role in educating and motivating smokers to quit. Primary health practitioners should continuously work to identify smokers, assess their smoking status, and offer them support and cessation treatment options at every opportunity.

In our region, respiratory disease is the third leading cause of death and accounts for 5% of all hospitalisations. The leading cause of respiratory diseases is tobacco smoking. Our region’s smoking in pregnancy rates are consistently higher than the NSW average, with almost 14% of pregnant women smoking during pregnancy.

Wentworth Healthcare has always valued the views of our community, and we have incorporated nationally-recognised community engagement projects into our strategic planning for over five years.

The people involved in our regional Community Advisory Committee (CAC) as well as those who participate in our LGA-based consumer groups represent a broad cross-section of our local community.

In our region, respiratory disease is the third leading cause of death. It accounts for 5% of hospitalisations and is one of the top two potentially preventable causes of hospitalisation, with around 970 people admitted to local hospitals from respiratory conditions each year.

November is Lung Health Awareness month, and I welcome this opportunity to raise awareness about the importance of lung health, in particular Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), which affects 1 in 7 Australians.

Respiratory disease (eg. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary disease or COPD, Asthma, Influenza and Pneumonia) accounts for approximately 7% of the burden of disease in the Australian population.