'A Guide to Your Local Health Services'

'A Guide to Your Local Health Services', a 100-page directory to health services in the Eastern Suburbs was launched on November 16.  The Guide is now being distributed to every home in the Human Services Department’s Eastern Metropolitan Region, covering the municipalities of Boroondara, Whitehorse, Knox, Monash, Manningham and Yarra Ranges.

Localised copies are also being distributed to every other household in Victoria.

Every hospital, community health centre, dental, child, maternal and other relevant service provided by the Department of Human Services (DHS) is included, namely:

• Emergency and Crisis
• Hospital Services
• Aged Care
• Alcohol and Drug Services
• Child and Family Health
• Community Health
• Counselling and Support
• Dental Health
• Emotional and Mental Health
• Health Promotion
• Rehabilitation
• Sexual Health

The Guides to Local Health Services are the first such initiatives of their kind in Victoria and are being produced at a cost of just $2.70 per family. In future it will be updated through the Health Channel – and interactive Internet site presently being developed by the DHS.

Victoria’s hospital system has benefited by a $268 million injection of new funds this year as a result of the State Budget and the recent Australian Health Care (Medicare) Agreement with the Federal Government.

The hospitals in the Inner and Eastern Health Care Network and the denominational hospitals such as St. Vincent’s, which also service the area are sharing $51.7 million of this money. Victoria spends over $4 billion per year on health care.

(News Release, Minister for Health and Aged Care, November 16, 1998; ‘A Guide to Your Local Health Services’ Information Package, Dept of Human Services, December 1998)