For women living in and around Robinvale, having access to a familiar and trusted doctor means receiving preventative medical care, close to home.
Every seven weeks, GP obstetrician Dr Anita Moss makes the trip back to the border community she has come to know so well. For the past eight years, she has provided women’s health care to local patients, building strong relationships and becoming a familiar face in the community.
Through the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) Victoria’s Flying Doctor GP service, Dr Moss is funded as part of the First Nations Health Outreach Service (FNHOS) that connects rural communities with visiting health professionals through Rural Workforce Agency Victoria (RWAV). The FNHOS program helps reduce some of the barriers faced by people living outside major centres, including distance, travel costs and limited access to specialised care.
For Dr Moss, the value of the service extends beyond providing appointments. It is about creating continuity of care, improving health knowledge and ensuring rural patients have the opportunity to access healthcare from someone they know and trust.
“Improving health literacy is something I feel very passionate about. Geography and financial hardship should not be barriers to accessing comprehensive healthcare,” Dr Moss says.
Robinvale is a community where distance can significantly influence healthcare access. With the nearest hospital around an hour away and specialist services requiring even longer travel, having regular access to a visiting GP allows women to seek care closer to home and address health concerns earlier.
During her visits, Dr Moss provides a range of women’s health services, including procedures that are not otherwise available locally. Without this service, some women would need to travel hundreds of kilometres, arrange specialist referrals and wait months for appointments.
The ability to provide longer consultations is another important part of the service. Dr Moss says returning regularly allows her to better understand each patient’s circumstances and provide care that considers their overall health and wellbeing.
“I actually get to sit down and get to the heart of the matter, which is rarely what they walk in the door with. To be able to approach it in a holistic, comprehensive way is really important,” she says.
Over time, Dr Moss’s regular visits have strengthened connections between the visiting service, local health providers and the Robinvale community. By being present consistently, she has been able to build trust with patients and support the work already being done by local clinicians and allied health professionals.
“Having that regular contact with the community allows us to establish good rapport and build trust with patients,” she says.
The impact of outreach health care can be seen in the number of people able to access care without leaving their community. In the past year, RWAV-supported RFDS outreach services provided more than 1,300 appointments and helped save rural patients thousands of hours of travel.
For Dr Moss, the greatest impact is knowing that communities like Robinvale have access to a consistent healthcare presence.
“To have that regular visit, that regular touchpoint, that same face – it means so much to these communities. It’s been a great privilege to be of service in this community over the last eight years,” she says.
This article originally appeared in Partyline here and was co-authored by Maddison Langley, Content Lead, Royal Flying Doctor Service Victoria; and Lenora Chau, Marketing and Communications Officer, Rural Workforce Agency Victoria
