Monash Health

The next time you’re looking for a sweet treat, please consider picking up a jar of ‘Mum’s Jam’ at Coles Group, with 50 cents from every jar going to help children in hospitals including Monash Children’s Hospital. To celebrate the launch of Mum’s Jam, available in raspberry and strawberry, the Monash Health Foundation hosted Hospitals United For Sick Kids (HUSK), patients, families, and Coles Group for a morning tea at Monash Children’s Hospital. The partnership between HUSK and Coles has raised over $7 million for the Australia wide alliance of children’s hospitals since its inception in 2019, improving the hospital experience for young people faced with both short and long-term admissions. The Monash Children's Hospital and HUSK collaboration is focused on improving hospital experience and patient recovery, reducing hospital length of stay, and supporting treatment at home when appropriate. From Monash Health, thank you to HUSK, Coles and everyone involved in this important initiative.

No tricks, just treats, costumes and compassionate care at Monash Health hospitals this Halloween🎃 To make sure our young patients and their families don’t miss out on Halloween, our teams are bringing the spooky fun to the wards👻 Visitors, please don’t be alarmed: we promise the giant spiders🕷️ and skeletons💀 are fake! Happy Halloween to all who celebrate🎃👻

Monash Children’s Hospital this week welcomed special guests Tony Armstrong and Emma Sjaan Beukers to read their new book, George the Wizard, to patients and families. The audience was treated to a magical story and beautiful illustrations, with Tony and Emma gifting and signing copies for all who attended. The visit was organised by the wonderful team at Monash Children’s Hospital School and took place in the hospital’s Starlight Express Room which streamed the visit to ward beds across Australia. “It was such a special visit for our young patients and their families,” said Kate Cooper, Assistant Principal at Monash Children’s Hospital School. “Visits like this provide opportunities that many of our students miss out on when they are away from their own schools.” From Monash Health, thank you to Tony and Emma for their visit and generosity.

Across Monash Health, thousands of nurses provide compassionate, expert care to people affected by cancer. Nurses have a profound impact on our patients’ cancer journey, from diagnosis, through treatment, recovery and beyond. In the video we proudly share, we spotlight the work of the dedicated nursing team on Reef ward, the Paediatric Day Oncology Unit at Monash Children’s Hospital Cancer Centre, including its longest serving nurse, Nurse Practitioner Kate Vandenberg. We applaud the skill of all our nurses who walk alongside patients with cancer and their families during immensely challenging times. Nurses in a variety of roles provide care to patients affected by cancer. We celebrate their knowledge and marvel at their strength. We, along with the patients and families, are deeply grateful for the care they provide.

As Victorian students head into their VCE exams, we want to help them ace being happy and healthy throughout their study time 📚⭐ Our teams at Monash Children’s Hospital and Monash Children‘s Hospital School support teenage patients and families every day, using strategies that help reduce stress and improve learning. ‘As teachers, we’re really mindful that your brain and memory can only do so much without a “brain break”,’ said Sarah-Jane George, Assistant Principal, Monash Children’s Hospital School. ‘Every student is going to have different needs, and it’s important to find a focus shift and routine that works for each unique individual – it could be as simple as changing their environment or studying with a friend’. A study routine is very important, but part of that routine should include short breaks for: 💪 Physical exercise 🍎 Eating nutritious foods 💙 Connecting with family and friends 🎨 Doing any activity that brings calm or joy (e.g. music, reading, drawing etc.) ‘Music is a motivator, and we can use it as a resource to re-energise and improve focus,’ said Will Darbyshire, Music Therapist at Monash Children’s Hospital. ‘As a Music Therapist in the hospital, we do a lot of work with teenagers around supporting moments of high stress, anxiety and low mood. [Music] can help us move through negative feelings, or equally connect us back to positive feelings.’ ‘If you’re studying for an hour, every 15 minutes stop, and play some music, that you associate with a state of calm, relaxation and curiosity’.

Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of women in Australia. The Victorian Heart Hospital is helping women live longer, healthier lives by providing women-centred healthcare and raising awareness of women’s heart disease in the community and among clinicians. ‘We know that when women experience heart disease there can be delays to them getting treatment, and that sometimes women receive less invasive treatment or less treatment compared to men,’ said the Women’s Heart Health lead at the Victorian Heart Hospital, Dr Esther Davis. ‘There is still this perception that heart attacks are something that mainly happen to men, and symptoms in women may not be recognised as related to the heart.’ Women’s risk factors for cardiovascular disease heighten during pregnancy and menopause. ‘I would encourage any woman over the age of 45, or any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman over the age of 30, to go see their GP and get a Heart Health Check,’ said Dr Davis. ‘So, that they are aware of their risk of heart disease, and they can do everything they can to protect their heart health into the future.’

This October, we recognise Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, a time to honour the 3,000 Australian families who face stillbirth or the loss of a newborn each year. Despite advances in healthcare, stillbirth rates remain high, particularly in marginalised communities. Monash Health resident medical officer Dr Keeth Mayakaduwage is leading the charge in understanding and preventing stillbirth through his research, teaching, and advocacy. His work has been centred on the Safer Baby Bundle, which is an evidence-based antenatal care initiative that aims to reduce preventable stillbirths. With a focus on education, better antenatal care, and equitable healthcare access, Dr Mayakaduwage envisions a future where no family has to endure the preventable loss of their baby. His work highlights the need for comprehensive care for all women, regardless of their background🌍🤝 Join the conversation and help break the silence around this important issue. Read more about Dr Mayakaduwage’s work: https://lnkd.in/gb-Sa7kM

Sexually active people in Melbourne’s south-east should look out for warning signs of mpox and take measures to protect themselves. “This can be a sexually transmitted infection, so anyone who is sexually active can be at risk,” said Professor Rhonda Stuart, Director of Monash Health’s South East Public Health Unit and Director of Infection Prevention & Epidemiology at Monash Health. “It is mainly diagnosed in men who have sex with men, but now we are seeing it in other people, including a handful of women and in heterosexual transmission.” More than a quarter of the 330 cases confirmed and diagnosed in Victoria this year have been in people living in Melbourne’s south-east. Mpox is a disease caused by the monkeypox virus. It’s mostly spread through prolonged physical or intimate (skin-to-skin) contact with someone who has mpox. Symptoms resemble sexually transmitted infections and can include a rash that can be painful and affect any part of the body. Mpox can cause severe illness and leave long-term impacts, such as scarring. So far this year 27 people have been hospitalised. “People who are sexually active and have any symptoms should get a test from their GP or at a sexual health clinic so they don’t spread it on to other people,” Professor Stuart said. Free mpox vaccines are available for eligible Victorians from vaccination providers across Victoria and in the south-east. “It’s important to remember that vaccination prevents severe disease and, in some cases, it might prevent infection as well,” Professor Stuart said. “But it doesn’t stop all people becoming infected and so you are still at risk of getting the disease, even if you are vaccinated.” For more information, please visit: https://lnkd.in/gS5cnyhc

Monash Health is proud to have three amazing finalists for the 2024 Victorian Public Healthcare Awards. Our dedicated Patient Experience team has been selected as a finalist in the 'Partnering with consumers to improve patient experience' category 👏 They have been chosen for their work implementing the Monash Health Service Excellence Standards. The Service Excellence Standards are 10 simple behaviours that show everybody our people interact with just how much we care about them ❤️ “We are so proud of how everyone has helped us to embed the Service Excellence Standards across Monash and love hearing of examples of how teams are embracing the Standards to help improve their patient’s experience,” said Juliet Pellegrini, Director of Patient Experience and Consumer Partnerships. The Standards are now fully implemented and visible across our hospital sites, so our consumers know what to expect from our employees, at every interaction. Pleasingly, improvements in both the Victorian Health Experience Survey and the Monash Health Experience Survey results demonstrate the positive impact the Standards have had on improving our patients' experience. Comments from the surveys recognised positive employee behaviours, highlighting the importance of the Standards in establishing trust and making patients feel both valued and involved in their care. "Staff are very helpful and kind. The doctors explained things very clearly and came to visit regularly, making sure I was recovered well." "They gave me privacy and attended to my care in a timely manner, making my stay comfortable." From all at Monash Health, well done to the team. The winners will be revealed at the Awards Gala Night on 19 November! 🏆

Congratulations to Monash Health Endocrinologist, Associate Professor Jun Yang, who has been added to the state’s official Honour Roll of Women, as a change agent in the field of hypertension research and treatment 🏆 A/Prof Yang, who is also Head of the Endocrine Hypertension Service at Hudson Institute of Medical Research, joins a group of remarkable Victorian women who share her persistence and determination to make meaningful change. The award comes in honour of A/Prof Yang’s years of work to increase the diagnosis and treatment of Primary Aldosteronism (PA), which is responsible for up to 10 per cent of all cases of hypertension (high blood pressure). PA affects up to 600,000 Australians, with many of them unaware of the condition, meaning that both their PA and their hypertension are likely to go untreated. ‘Under A/Prof Yang's leadership, diagnoses have increased fortyfold, leading to the service being recognised by Monash Health and the Victorian Public Health Awards,’ said Dr Ranjana Srivastava OAM, Monash Health Oncologist. Professor Peter Fuller, Head of Monash Health’s Endocrinology Unit and Hudson Institute’s Centre for Endocrinology and Metabolism, described her as a force of nature whose academic trajectory has been stellar. ‘She has successfully integrated her clinical expertise with discovery science and community outreach to advance the diagnosis of PA, an under-recognised, potentially curable, cause of hypertension,’ said Professor Fuller. ‘(She is) an extraordinary young clinician-researcher who has successfully juggled clinical, family and academic responsibilities to be a role model for young women in science and endocrinology, with a reach and impact well beyond Victoria.’