Preventive Health

Preventive Health Measures

Vaccinations

All children from 6 months to less than 5 years of age, all adults aged 65 years and older, all pregnant women, all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 6 months and over and all individuals aged 6 months and older with medical conditions which increase the risk of influenza disease complications are eligible for government funded National Immunisation Program (NIP) Flu vaccinations.

Children and adults with conditions that increase the risk of pneumococcal disease, all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults ≥50 years of age and all non-indigenous adults ≥70 years of age are eligible for NIP funded Pneumococcal vaccinations.

Vaccination against shingles with the Zostavax® vaccine is free under the NIP funding for immunocompetent people aged 70.

Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine is also free for those born during or since 1966.

All pregnant women can also receive a Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis (Whopping cough vaccine, such as Adacel or Boostrix) for each pregnancy, between 20–32 weeks gestation for optimal protection.

Catch-up is available for adolescents up to 19 years of age, under the NIP, for diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis, poliomyelitis, measles-mumps-rubella, hepatitis B, chickenpox, meningococcal ACWY. For Human Papillomavirus (HPV), funded catch-up is available before the age of 26 years.

Patients who have sustained a potentially dirtied wound (e.g., stepping onto a dirty nail) are entitled to a government funded Tetanus booster (ADT) vaccination.

If you are not eligible under the NIP Program, we can provide you with private scripts.

There is also a plethora of COVID-19 vaccinations that we can offer, all funded by the government.

Disease Screening

Some common disease screenings we provide include checking for high blood pressure, high blood sugar (a risk factor for diabetes mellitus), kidney disease, high blood cholesterol (risk factor for heart attack and stroke), screening for colon cancer, and other common types of sexually transmitted disease such as chlamydia.

We also encourage mammography (to screen for breast cancer), a Cervical Screening Test / Pap Smear (to check for cervical cancer) and screening for osteoporosis for women of the relevant age groups and risk factors.

Psychosocial screening is also performed for certain patients to explore depression, suicide and intimate partner violence.

Genetic testing can also be performed to screen for mutations that cause genetic disorders or predisposition to certain diseases such as breast or ovarian cancer in conjunction with specialist services.

Health Management Plans

In addition, there are government Medicare funded chronic health management plans available for our regular patients to assist you with a chronic health or a serious medical condition. These include Diabetes, Asthma, Heart attacks / failure, Chronic Musculoskeletal conditions and many others. Please make an appointment to see if you are eligible to access allied health care funded by Medicare. These include dietician, psychologist, exercise physiologist, physiotherapist and many others.

We also offer specific preventative health assessment packages for Men’s and Women’ s Health (at 40 -49 years old), for patients at and over 75 years old and Veterans’ Health Checks. In addition, we offer patients of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background government-funded health care assessments every 9 months.