Townsville Health and Hospital Service claim Queensland step challenge

Townsville Health and Hospital Service has been named the most active in Queensland, recording more than 289 million steps in a nearly five-week long challenge.

Freudian Skips members Claire Hession, Bridget Webber, Leigh Ryan and Monique Du'cane The team were one of 85 Townsville HHS teams and one of hundreds across Queensland to take part in a statewide hospital and health service 10,000 step challenge set by Queensland Health’s Director General Michael Walsh. The 10-person Townsville-based team set the winning pace and clocked an average of 259,204 steps per day and a total of 8,553,710 steps during the nearly five-week long challenge. Picture: Supplied

Townsville’s Health and Hospital Service (THHS) has been named the most active in Queensland, recording more than 289 million steps in a nearly five-week long challenge.

Leading the charge as part of a state-wide HHS 10,000 step challenge set by Queensland Health Director-General Michael Walsh were the Freudian Skips, one of 85 THHS teams.

The 10-person Townsville-based team made up of psychologists, a podiatrist and a speech pathologist clocked an average 259,204 steps per day for a total of 8,553,710 during the challenge.

Team captain and paediatric psychologist Monique Du’cane said they never intended to record more steps than anyone else.

“We all went into the challenge with the goal of just doing more than 10,000 steps a day,” she said.

“In the first couple of weeks we realised we were averaging more than most people and that’s when our motivation really kicked in and we thought let’s take this home and let’s win this.”

Townsville Hospital and Health Service CEO Kieran Keyes said the director-general’s step challenge had helped to foster a “culture of physical activity and well-being within the workplace.” Picture: Evan Morgan

Ms Du’cane said the team organised walks after work and larger excursions, often more than 20 kilometres, on Sundays.

“In our profession we are passionate about prescribing movement as medicine, and what the step challenge did was helped us to walk the walk and practice what we preached.”

Podiatrist Leigh Ryan was the most active member of the team, recording an average of 39,614 daily steps.

He said he used the challenge as motivation to help him train harder for the surf life-saving world championships in late August.

“This challenge was a bit of extra motivation to go a bit harder at the gym and a bit longer in the pool,” he said.

“We have a few competitive people in the team who are training for things like marathons or next month’s Townsville to Cairns Bike Ride and we pushed each other along to do more and more.”

THHS CEO Kieran Keyes was proud of everyone who took up and took part in the challenge.

“More than 750 staff from the Townsville HHS were involved in the challenge and took steps towards better health,” Mr Keyes said.

“It’s been inspiring to see how seriously our people took it as they recorded more than 289 million steps.”

Originally published as Townsville Health and Hospital Service claim Queensland step challenge