This week is Women’s Health Week! To celebrate CheckUP would like to highlight one of our amazing members and Outreach providers True Relationships & Reproductive Health (True), who are making great strides in rural and remote women’s health.

Determined to develop a sustainable health service to ensure preventative care is within reach of every community, True partnered with CheckUP in 2015, launching their rural and remote service.

Today True’s friendly female clinicians regularly visit the outback, hosting, offering vital reproductive and sexual health services such as contraception advice, pregnancy planning, cervical screening and breast examinations.

These rural and remote communities often have fantastic GPs. One of the challenges with close-knit communities means that local residents may experience discomfort discussing sensitive issues such as sexual and reproductive health with someone they might run into at the local supermarket.

True are committed to bringing expert reproductive and sexual health services to every Queenslander. Lorna Lavaring, Outreach Program Administrator at True reflected that,

“It doesn’t take months of going out there to build trust – it’s years of visits to build relationships and trust.”

“If a clinic has lower numbers than usual you can see something is going on within the area. Busy periods on the land such as mustering will take precedence over health appointments for rural and remote women living on the land. Now with telehealth becoming more normalised, True can support these women in-between visits and when major events are occurring.”