Student clinic launch
by Vincent Ciccarello
A
student clinic to be officially launched this month in Adelaide’s
northern suburbs is filling a void in local health services and giving
UniSA students valuable practical experience.
The Playford Community Health Service in Davoren Park now offers free physiotherapy and podiatry services to disadvantaged people in their local community through a partnership with UniSA.
Patients can have conditions assessed and treated by final-year physiotherapy and second-year podiatry students, under the supervision of UniSA staff, without needing to travel to Adelaide.
Director of UniSA’s podiatry program, Dr Sara Jones, said the clinic has "taken off like a rocket.
"We’re seeing a wide range of people from the community and a wide range of ailments," she said. "It’s providing the opportunity for students to interact with the community and to be involved in the management of a range of problems they may not otherwise get to see in a standard, university-based clinic. The patients are receiving it extremely well."
Lynn Klassmann, manager of the health centre, which provides speech and nutrition services, social work, counselling and community health workers, agreed.
"The community has really picked it up," she said. "It’s a free service to our local disadvantaged who often don’t have access to these services."
Dr Jones said the idea for a student clinic came through the Northern Adelaide Health and Wellbeing Project, funded by a grant from the federal government’s Department of Transport and Regional Services to look at ways of improving services for the community within the northern Adelaide region.
"We realised there was actually quite a large demand in the community for
an allied health service, but one that was more fully integrated in the
community than you’d find in a hospital,"
Dr Jones said.
"The staff at Playford Community Health Service offered us space and were also incredibly enthusiastic about the idea of having a multidisciplinary environment working there."
Klassmann wants the arrangement with UniSA to continue well into the future.
"The clinic is value-adding to the services we already offer," she said. "It’s enabled us to offer a more holistic service to our community. And we’re hoping that students who come to a community health setting are also exposed to our way of working and primary health services, so it’s value-adding for the students as well."