Ulong Health Hub complete as Dr Jay Ruthnam starts consultations

From tin sheds to paddock air strips: Ulong’s long fight for better healthcare is complete with arrival of Dr Jay Ruthnam

The official opening of the Ulong Health Hub. The clinic now has a doctor present once a month and a registered nurse every fortnight.Member for Coffs Harbour Gurmesh Singh, Dr Jay Ruthnam (Northside Health), Coffs Harbour Mayor Denise Knight, Dr Alex Joannou (Northside Health), medical student Danny Deng (Northside Health) and Kash Reddy (Healthy North Coast).

Carol Cleary likens the five-year quest to get health services in Ulong to a puzzle – and they have just found the last piece.

From this month, Northside Health’s Dr Jay Ruthnam will visit the town nestled into the mountains about an hour west of Coffs Harbour on a monthly basis. He is the first doctor to work from the town more than 20 years.

Owner of the Ulong General Store since 2010, Carol Cleary, has been championing the creation of a health hub since 2016 and said it was pretty clear early on that health services were sorely lacking in the town.

On the “absolutely amazing” result, Ms Cleary said she was heartened by the way in which each department, from Healthy North Coast to NSW Tafe to Coffs Harbour City Council, had recognised the importance of the project and done their part.

“It has been a massive effort from everyone having a can-do attitude,” she said.

Mission accomplished: Ulong residents Megan Harris, Carol Cleary, Katie Sibio campaign for a doctor back in 2017.

An outreach clinic enabling resident health checks by registered nurses and nursing students began “on trestle tables” inside the community hall in 2018 and by the next year had moved into a purpose-built consultation room within the “tin shed”.

With the town so far from Coffs Harbour, Ms Cleary said there was often a reluctance to seek medical help and even since having nurses come and engage with people on preventive medicine, there had been positive outcomes.

But getting a GP into the “little village out of the way” was always the missing piece in the puzzle and Ms Cleary said at one stage she had sourced an air strip on a farmer’s property to fly a doctor in, such was her passion to make it happen.

“Country people are tough people … if you don’t have something that is pressing you don’t worry about it,” she said.

“So by the time they have to go and see a doctor it is a serious matter and it can cost the medical system more because it has progressed into something more serious.”

At the ribbon cutting - (from left) Ulong Health Hub campaigner Carol Cleary, Dr Jay Ruthnam, Lisa Taffe from TAFE NSW, and Coffs Harbour Mayor Denise Knight.

While Ms Cleary admits to becoming disheartened at times, she always believed it would happen if she
“kept chipping away at it” and she recalls telling her husband in the early days that “this could take a while, but we will get there”.

As the coronavirus pandemic flared in 2020 it looked like their progress was to stall but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the Medicare-backed telehealth system opened up new opportunities for regional towns like Ulong to access healthcare.

Now Ulong patients can call Northside Health and receive a telehealth consultation with a doctor in Coffs Harbour while there is a registered nurse present in Ulong during their fortnightly visits to the town.

And add in that monthly visit from Dr Ruthnam and the small community’s health puzzle is now complete.