Principal's Report

 

 Doctors in Schools

Earlier this year I announced that our College was successful in being selected to participate in the Victorian Government’s Doctors in Secondary Schools program. As of the beginning of the 2018 school year, a General Practitioner will be working for one a day a week from a purposefully built clinic within the College’s grounds. In conjunction with the Department of Education and Training, we have started to put in place the first steps of this program in preparation.

At this stage, I want to take this opportunity to provide families with with some initial information to this program. I also plan to provide more detailed fact sheets about this program at the start of next year once we have all the details in place.

What is Doctors in Schools?

The $43.8 million Doctors in Secondary Schools initiative is delivering on the election commitment of our State Government to fund general practitioners (GPs) to attend up to 100 Victorian government secondary schools up to one day a week to provide medical advice and health care to those students most in need.

The objectives of the program are to:

• make primary health care more accessible to students
• provide assistance to young people to identify and address any health problems early
• aim to reduce the pressure on working parents and community-based GPs.

The program will make a valuable contribution to achieving the Education State targets of 'happy, healthy and resilient kids' by improving ease of access to health services for young people.

How will the program work?

The College is currently in the process of finalizing the successful provider off this service. At the start of next year, we will work with one of the local General Practices to enable primary health care services to be delivered on our school premises. A GP and nurse will attend the school one day a week to assist students to identify and address any health problems early.

All secondary school students who are enrolled at our College will be able to access the GP, subject to providing the requisite consent for the services.

The participating Victorian Government Secondary Schools, students and their parents/guardians/carers will not incur any out-of-pocket expenses for consultations with the GP on the school premises.

Further information can be found through the following link or by contacting the college.

http://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/programs/health/pages/doctors-secondary-schools.aspx

John Mitsinikos

College Principal