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President's Report
This is a report on the activities and services provided by the Haemophilia Foundation ACT
Incorporated(HFACT) for the year ended June 2011.
Membership
The HFACT welcomes a number of new members that have come to our notice during the
year. The task of educating and supporting these new members is an ongoing responsibility
of the committee and the older membership.
Fundraising Activities
Fundraising has been one focus of the group during this year. It started with a BBQ held at Bunnings in Fyshwick in October. The hard-working team of helpers cooked sausages and onions and packed them into slices of bread with lots of enthusiasm. We managed to raise $1,400 for our efforts. Many thanks go to all who helped.
Thanks to the Minty family, a Cake stall at the Woden markets has also been a successful fund-raiser for the group.
The group also hosted a number of social events during the year to give members an oppor-tunity to catch up with each other.
Services
The HFACT provides counselling and support services to persons with haemophilia through the employment of a Haemophilia counsellor.
We are grateful to Clare Reeves for stepping back into the counsellor position when it be-came vacant again in October 2010.
A total of 595 hours of support and care was provided throughout the year.
Informal support groups
The women’s group "Women’s Wisdom" has continued to meet from time to time. This well attended group provides an opportunity for women affected by Haemophilia to share their experiences and concerns with others.
Advocacy
The committee has an important role in representing the concerns of members in relation to the provision of optimal health care for haemophilia. The committee keeps in contact with management staff from the Haemophilia Treatment Centre to make sure that the needs of the Haemophilia committee are known. This is particularly important due to the hospital refur-bishment and the potential changes of management and arrangements at the hospital.
On behalf of the committee and the broader membership of HFACT, I would like to thank our (relatively) new nurse, Vanessa Minor, for her enthusiastic approach to the special role that nurses fulfil in Haemophilia care.
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Communication
Four newsletters were produced and distributed during the year. The HFACT also maintains a website for the benefit of members and interested parties. My special thanks go once again to Ron Lees who gathered, edited and formatted the material for the newsletters and main-tains the HFACT website.
Government funding
We are grateful for the ongoing financial support of the ACT Government through a service contract with ACT Health. It is through this contract that we are able to provide the counsel-ling and support services to the haemophilia community.
National and International Involvement
HFACT is a member organisation of the Haemophilia Foundation of Australia (HFA) who represent our interests at national and international levels. My thanks go to Maria Wensing for representing HFACT at the HFA Council during the year. Maria also had the good for-tune to be invited by HFA to attend the World Congress of the World Federation of Haemo-philia in Buenos Aires last year. She assisted the team of Australians in their successful bid to host the 2014 congress in Melbourne.
Thanks
Finally, my thanks go to the committee for their efforts during the year. There have been a few challenging issues but we have managed to handle them.
Challenges ahead
The next year provides us with continuing challenges:
- To work with the Haemophilia Treatment Centre to ensure that the full range
of comprehensive care remains accessible to all patients;
- Ensure that patients are given full choice in treatment products;
- Planning and conduct of a "get-away" weekend for members of the Haemophilia commu-nity in November;
- To continue to provide opportunities for new members to learn from the
experiences of older members; and
- To encourage ongoing participation in the activities of the Foundation
(ie. the committee, support groups, functions etc).
Fred Wensing
(President)
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