The Limestone Coast Women’s Health Collective (LCWHC) recently held a free community event discussing perimenopause and menopause which attracted around 100 attendees.
The event was co-hosted by Lucy Lines of Detox WTF and Dr Monique Kanters from Women’s Health @ Hawkins who featured on a dynamic panel of healthcare professionals with the likes of Megan Watt (dietitian), Tarsh McCallum (physiotherapist), Dr Monja Human (psychologist) and Dr Tema Windust (gynaecologist).
The event covered a medical overview, symptoms, symptom management including lifestyle changes and mental health implications.
Ms Lines said the health collective planned the event after hosting a well received women’s health expo last year and discovering that access to women’s health specific advice and guidance is “difficult” in this region.
“We wanted to make it more accessible to people and we know that people have long wait times to get in front of a medical professional they need to see,” she said.
“We thought we could kill two birds with one stone by pulling together a group of people who are specialists in this space to provide that baseline foundational level of knowledge to support the health literacy of the region.
“Access to GPs is really challenging, people feel a little bit lost and overwhelmed especially with the rise of wellness influencers on social media; they do not know who to believe, they do not know who to trust and they cannot get access to their doctor to ask them.
“If we can provide these kinds of information sessions where people can gather that information and be introduced to the medical professionals and health professionals who can help them then we can fast track that process.”
The LCWHC will be holding another free women’s health expo on Friday, September 5 as part of Women’s Health Week at the Walunda Recreation and Convention Centre with funding from the Mount Gambier City Council.
“We are hoping to put on a couple of other events between now and then as well depending on what kind of information people want in the space of women’s health,” Ms Lines said.
