Gilgandra has announced its first ever Aboriginal Medical Service(AMS), which will provide culturally appropriate health services to the community under the governance of the Coonamble Aboriginal Health Service.

Coonamble Aboriginal Health Service Executive Officer Phil Naden said that the new service is a long-awaited victory for the town.

“There was a funding grant opportunity that came through targeted at service expansion back in the early stages of 2020. We found out that we were successful earlier this year” Mr Naden said. 

While other doctor surgeries and medical services have always been available to the wider Gilgandra community, Mr Naden said that the addition of culturally appropriate services for the local Aboriginal community is crucial. 

“We’re an Aboriginal community controlled health service and a member of our state and national body. We’ve found that having the AMS there and getting ready to go is making people really happy, people are chomping at the bit to get a go on,” he said.

“The other important thing is that we can build a strong Aboriginal workforce in Gilgandra and employ some local people that are situated there. Also, we can recruit more GP’s and allied health services in smaller rural communities,” Mr Naden said. 

The Gilgandra service will be add a third placement in what is referred to as a ‘corridor of health’ for AMS clients, that already includes Coonamble and Dubbo.

The location is likely the last that will be established for some time, with the AMS moving its focus towards out of home care, which refers to alternative accommodation for children and young people who are unable to live with their parents.

“Within Coonamble, we’ll be offered a contract at some stage through the Department of Community Justice to expand services around out of home care,” Mr Naden said.

“Now that we have this corridor of health for all of our clients who move from town to town, we can link them into our services,” he said.

Within Gilgandra’s AMS, which will be similar but a smaller version of Coonamble’s own AMS, allied health services, social emotional wellbeing services and counselling will be offered, as well as complementary programs that run from Dubbo. 

“At this point we’ve secured a GP and we will have a registered nurse there, an Aboriginal health worker, and also a receptionist in the early days.”

The opening of Gilgandra AMS is just months away, due to be completed in mid-late February 2022.

The services will be available to everyone in the wider community.