Public health issues on Shire agenda

The Shire of East Pilbara’s Public Health Implementation Planning Committee met in Newman earlier this month, to talk about how external agencies could add value to the Shire’s health promotion activities as part of the Public Health Plan.

Shire staff met with Puntukurnu Aboriginal Medical Service’s Kate Clarke and Stoneham and Associates Public Health Consulting’s Melissa Stoneham on September 5 for the second meeting of the group.

New video conferencing technology was used to consult surrounding service providers on the discussion topics, including representatives from the Mental Health Commission, Foodbank WA, the Health Department and the Heart Foundation, the Public Health Advocacy Institute of WA, Mentally Healthy WA and Tim Brokenshire from the neighbouring Ashburton Shire.

Development services health manager Edmore Masaka said some of the important issues touched on last week included better promoting the Shire’s sharps collection program, creating more community gardens and selecting a mental health champion among the Shire’s elected members.

“This meeting is enabling the Shire to focus on the important public health issues for the community and also it is enabling the Shire to build partnerships with other agencies that are doing activities that satisfy the priorities for the improvement of public health,” he said.

“There will be in the coming year surveys that we send to try and find out what the community thinks about public health in the shire, so the community should expect that (and) it will be an ongoing evaluation.”

The Shire of East Pilbara adopted the community-based Public Health Plan in October 2014, in a bid to promote health and wellbeing for community members of all ages and all capabilities.

The plan addresses six priority areas including obesity prevention and the provision of healthy food options, mental health, alcohol, drugs and solvent use, environmental health protection, community safety and the Shire of East Pilbara acting as a healthy role model.

The Shire of East Pilbara is one of few local governments which have developed a Public Health Plan, which is now mandated under the 2016 Public Health Act, and was the first regional council in WA to do so.

The group are expected to meet one more time before the end of the year.