TAMWORTH’S Serendipity committee was over the moon on Monday when Glenn McGrath flew in to announce the funding of a breast care nurse to service Tamworth and the North West Cancer Centre.
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The volunteer committee, now in it’s 21st year, has been fighting for the services of a breast care nurse for the region for five years, stepping this campaign up 18 months ago by forming a sub-committee with other allied health workers to secure a nurse through any funding source available.
Serendipity President Liney Manning said the committee was absolutely delighted to have such a successful outcome.
“This has been our goal,” Mrs Manning said.
“To engage a breast care nurse for Tamworth without compromising the services provided to outlying communities – It is a fantastic result.”
The committee, the region and most importantly the patients took a hit in January when the Test great announced that Tamworth would not be getting the services of a McGrath Nurse “in the forseeable future”.
“We were all a bit shell shocked when that was announced and we made the decision then and there that it wasn’t fair or right, and that Tamworth deserved a nurse,” Mrs Manning said.
The committee then resolved to bring to the community’s attention how much fundraising the McGrath Foundation was able to do in the local community, specifically during festival, while not servicing the region with a nurse.
Shortly after, it came out that the foundation’s offer of a half-time nurse in January was declined by “community and business stakeholders”, who stuck to their guns as the McGrath Foundation went back to the negotiating table and quickly came up with the accepted offer of a 0.8FTE role.
“We are absolutely delighted to be a part of the process and to be able to invigorate the community to a point where it has responded.”
“The bottom line is that it is a wonderful outcome for the community and the nurse will be another cog in the wheel of the fantastic cancer centre.”
