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A profoundly deaf nursing student from the Helena Goldie Hospital in the Solomon Islands (a hospital supported by UnitingCare Health) has been given the gift of hearing thanks to a dedicated team of medical professionals from St Andrew’s War Memorial Hospital. 

Stephen Heskibo (25), who learnt to communicate by lip reading from the age of seven, can now hear for the first time in almost 20 years after receiving a cochlear implant which was provided free through a collaborative effort between Ear, Nose and Throat surgeon at St Andrew’s, Dr Chris Que,  Queensland Cochlear and Audiologist Annette Kaspar. Ms Kaspar met Stephen at Helena Goldie Hospital last year.  She said that she believed that Stephen was a “walking miracle” to have found education and employment without hearing and was determined to help him hear once again. 

According to Ms Kasper, prior to the operation Stephen prayed morning and evening he would be able to hear again one day. “He wanted to hear the birds singing, to listen to the news on the radio, to hear people singing and talking and telling stories – he wanted to hear his patients complaining,” Ms Kaspar said. The cost of travel, scans and other costs amounting to more than $4 500 were raised by The Enoggera Emmanuel Uniting Church. 

St Andrew's War Memorial Hospital is a UnitingCare Health hospital and is part of UnitingCare Queensland which provides quality and compassionate care to more than 14 000 people every day of the year and also includes UnitingCare Community, Blue Care, and UnitingCare Social Justice.

A fire engulfing the Lifeline Woolloongabba store in the early hours of Thursday March 29 has destroyed one of UnitingCare Community’s biggest and most successful Lifeline shops in Brisbane.

The Woolloongabba shop was the second furniture store to be established by the organisation in Brisbane and was opened at the Gibbon Street site 25 years ago.

“The fire is a tragedy but we are thankful no one was hurt,” UnitingCare Community Brisbane Business Manager, Derek Carius said.

“We do not know what started the fire and will await the results of the police investigation."

"Whether or not the fire was deliberately lit, the amount of damage that has been caused and the impact this will have on our services and the Brisbane community makes this incident a tragedy regardless of the cause.”

“Everything in the store has been destroyed and it’s a significant loss to UnitingCare and the community. All funds we receive from our Lifeline shops financially support our community services. As such, we’re asking the Brisbane community to help us rebuild from today’s tragedy by donating any spare furniture or other goods they may have to our Lifeline stores,” he said.
 
Donations of goods can be made at Lifeline donation bins. For furniture donations, a pick up can be arranged by calling 3632 1010.

"Our thanks and sympathy go out to those community members who had made donations of furniture and goods to our shops intending for them to benefit those less fortunate in their community that have now been destroyed", Derek said.

"We are working closely with our staff and volunteers from other Lifeline shops around Brisbane and we are grateful for their loyal support," he said.

A new multicultural service that will assist people with culturally and linguistic diverse backgrounds (CALD) in the Logan, Ipswich, Gold Coast and Tweed areas to access aged care services has been opened at Blue Care Springwood Community Care. 

“This vital program will assist people who don’t have English as their first language to receive the community services they need,” Mercedes Sepulveda, Blue Care Multicultural Service Manager, said.  

The service is staffed with three multicultural advisors under the leadership of Ms Sepulveda, who will act as both an advisor and manager. 

Together, the service’s staff members cover five languages in addition to English – Mandarin Chinese, Hungarian, French, German and Spanish.  

“South-east Queensland has the most culturally diverse population of the state. If you look at Logan alone, 25.3 per cent of residents were born overseas and 12 per cent speak a language other than English at home,” Mercedes said.  

“It’s important to have bridging services in place so that everyone has the opportunity to access community care regardless of cultural and linguistic backgrounds.  

“We will work with Blue Care and other Home and Community Care (HACC) service providers, to assist them to be more culturally responsive and also to help CALD community members make well informed decisions about the services available to them.  

“The Blue Care Multicultural Service’s guiding principles are based on social justice and human rights and operate within a Community Development framework. The service offers advocacy, consultancy, referrals, training on cultural competence, resource support and provision of information,” she said.

Blue Care is part of UnitingCare Queensland which provides quality and compassionate care to more than 14 000 people every day of the year and also includes UnitingCare Community, UnitingCare Social Justice and UnitingCare Health

UnitingCare Queensland is urging the people of Queensland to join a national campaign designed to pressure the government into improving aged care services for all Australians.

Blue Care, a service group of UnitingCare Queensland, is one of 28 organisations representing clients, carers, staff and peak bodies, working together to create an aged care reform blueprint and to campaign for aged care reform through the Australians Deserve to Age Well campaign. 

UnitingCare Community, a service group of UnitingCare Queensland, is hosting a national conference designed to focus on abuse of the elderly to mark this year’s World Elder Abuse Awareness Day in June.
 
One of the highlights of the Elder Abuse National Conference will be the sharing of results from a study aimed to define the prevalence of elder abuse in Australia.  The conference will also feature keynote addresses from international elder abuse experts Professor Toshio Tatara from Japan and Professor Bridget Penhale from the United Kingdom.

A new toolkit for developing place-base responses to disadvantage has been published by UnitingCare Social Justice. This resource has been developed to assist anyone - from a community worker to an experienced community development practitioner - to plan, organise, implement and evaluate place-based projects. 

The toolkit contains a checklist for assessing places or regions for projects to address disadvantage, guidelines for developing regional action plans, a template for developing a regional action plan, as well as a section on creating and fostering a community of practice.