Thank you letter from Giant Steps School

Hunters Hill Medical Practice has a long history of caring for students and staff from the Giant Steps School for children and young adults with Autism at Gladesville. As such we were devastated to hear about the August 2021 COVID-19 outbreak in this vulnerable population and the difficulties that had been faced with having the students and the staff appropriately vaccinated.

Patients with autism are high risk

Children and adults with autism are a high risk population who require close contact with  those who care for them and can thus spread the virus amongst each other. Further, this group may not be able to express their symptoms to those around making recognition of illness harder. Thus they may end up with delayed presentation to hospital and more severe illness. Not to mention, that the average hospital environment with the myriad of lights, buzzers and noises would further distress a sick patient with autism. Prevention with vaccination was definitely the way to go.

HHMP runs 2 clinics at Giant Steps School 

HHMP Medical Director Dr Charbel Badr reached out to the acting principal at Giant Steps School, Andrew Frakes to see how HHMP can help. Vaccination of staff and students over the age of 12 was identified as a priority and HHMP made arrangements with the school to conduct 2 onsite clinics to vaccinate all those who needed it.

The need to have the clinics on site was to make them as accessible as possible for those needing vaccination and also in recognition of the needs of the students. Patients with autism prefer routine, places they are used to and people who they have got to know and trust. They may not be able to handle the overstimulation from a busy vaccine clinic waiting room with multiple other people around. Thus bringing the vaccines to them, in their school and sometimes even in their classes was definitely the way to go!

Dr Charbel Badr and HHMP head nurse Gabby ran both clinics at the Giant Steps school with 1st doses on Wednesday the 25th of August and 2nd doses on Wednesday the 15th  of September. Both clinics were very well organised by the school and very well attended by the patients. HHMP would like to thank Andrew Frakes from Giant Steps for all the effort he put into organising the clinic and supporting us on the day.

The response from the Giant Steps School community has been overwhelming and truly humbling for the HHMP staff. The experience has provided our staff with further motivation to try and seek out and help those most vulnerable. As a result we ran a smaller session at the HHMP vaccine clinic for staff and students from St Lucy’s School for children with disabilities.

Below is an email sent to HHMP following administration of the first doses by a parent from the Giant Steps School. The child’s and parent’s names have been withheld to protect their privacy.

Good afternoon,

My child is a student at Giant Steps at Gladesville and today has received the first COVID vaccination courtesy of your medical practice and Dr Badr.

I have had many sleepless nights recently worrying about how we would be able to achieve having my child vaccinated – it would have been an enormously difficult task for us to manage without a lot of support and I was at a loss to find an appropriate solution.  When the school advised us that your practice had offered to vaccinate students, we jumped at the chance. My child had the first shot this morning and it went more smoothly than anyone could imagine and I just wanted to send you a very heartfelt thank you.  We greatly appreciate the thoughtfulness and consideration extended to the school and its students, not to mention the organisation required to make it happen.

COVID has made life very challenging and uncertain but it also highlights just how many wonderful and generous people there are in our community.  Thank you for being those people.

Parent name withheld for privacy reasons

Banksy: nurses as heroes

If there was a time to celebrate the work that nurses do each and every day then 2021 is the year! In the middle of the pandemic, the work of all health professionals and especially the nursing profession has been exemplary.

A Nurse as a “Game Changer”

This week the HHMP nurses (and doctors) achieved a new HHMP vaccination record of 576 COVID-19 vaccines in a single week. Well over 100 vaccines per day. To celebrate this milestone and our nurses generally we installed a print of the Banksy artwork “Game Changer”. This was first installed in a Southampton Hospital to celebrate the work of healthcare staff during the pandemic. It was later sold at auction and raised 14.4 million Pounds for the British NHS (National Health System).

The work is a mostly in black and white and shows a boy playing with his toys. He has discarded Batman and Spiderman in a waste basket to play with the nurse who is wearing a cape and has a red cross on her uniform; this is the only colour in the picture. The picture delivers a strong message that is appropriate for our time. It has been very well received by the HHMP staff and especially the nurses.

Thank you to our nurses

If there was a time to celebrate the work that nurses do each and every day then 2020 and 2021 are the perfect time to do this. In the middle of the pandemic, the work of all health professionals and especially nurses has been exemplary.

Today, May 12, is the anniversary of the the birth of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. It is the day that the International Council of Nurses uses each year to celebrate the profession everywhere.

HHMP Celebrates our Nurses 

At HHMP we are very proud of our nurses and the work they do each and every day. They make the practice a more welcoming place and make it run so much better. They provide the absolute best service to our patients. Recently we have needed to run a COVID-19 and flu vaccination clinic concurrently, so every HHMP nurse stepped up in their usual no-fuss way.

Dr Keane commented about the value that practice nursing brings to our practice and how useful the treatment room is. Patients always appreciate the one to one attention and care they get from their nurse. Long term patients such as those for dressings and INRs develop very close bonds with the nurse looking after them.

Our head nurse Dee recently retired and will be missed by all. She has trained a fantastic team who have already stepped up to fill her big (little) shoes! Many thanks to Gabby, Issy, Charlotte, Linda and Tess (currently on maternity leave). We also miss our former MoleMap nurse Inga. HHMP would not be the same without the commitment and patient care that each nurse brings to their job.

To the nursing profession everywhere, we appreciate your good work and please keep it up during these tough times.