Knowledge sharing, health awareness at Rabo event + PICS

Rabobank’s Brad James and Marc Oostdijk, with Cheryl Kalisch Gordon from RaboResearch and Murdoch Lawyer’s Tony Randall

RABOBANK’S Community Fund partnered with mobile medical program Heart of Australia (HOA) to deliver a knowledge sharing event at Cecil Plains in Queensland today.

About 40 people attended the event which featured sessions by RaboResearch senior commodity analyst Cheryl Kalisch Gordon, Murdoch Lawyers director Tony Randall and Rabobank Sustainability and Community general manager Marc Oostdijk.

Also on site was an HOA truck that offered free preventable health screening services throughout the day.

HOA is a not-to-profit organisation is backed by the Rabo Community Fund, and has five trucks that travel through rural and remote areas in Queensland to provide medical services.

Mr Oostdijk said the event provided the perfect opportunity to blend this important health service with regional knowledge-sharing.

“Whilst we are not doctors, we can help to create the initiatives and bring them to rural people,” Mr Oostdijk said.

“I was one of those people who didn’t listen to his wife, but at some point went to a doctor, had a blood test and it turned out not to be very good at all.

“I was able to talk with a cardiologist and come up with a strategy to improve things.”

Coming from a compact country like The Netherlands, he said did not immediately understand the issues tied to accessing healthcare that people living in rural and remote parts of Australia experienced every day.

Mr Oostdijk said a trip with the Rural Flying Doctor Service gave him a first-hand view of the importance of mobile health programs, like HOA, to some communities.

“Health has come through as a big issue for rural people; that is what makes this initiative really important.”

Alongside the Cecil Plains event, Rabobank will also be hosting a similar session at Moonie tomorrow.