Jack Jumper shock leads to calls for local service

A SUNNY day out kayaking on his grandfather’s Creswick dam rapidly turned into a nightmare for young Creswick resident Jackson Noonan when he was bitten by a jack jumper ant and began to go into life-threatening anaphylactic shock.

Jackson’s mother Lisa Rodier called an ambulance and the (then) 11-year-old was rushed to the Ballarat Base Hospital, receiving multiple shots of adrenalin in the process.

“I knew he was allergic but when my husband brought him home from the dam where he had been bitten on the arm by just one jack jumper, he was itching all over and coming out in redness and lumps,” Ms Rodier recounts.

“We could see the reaction moving up his body and when it got to his lips and neck I knew he would really be in trouble.

“We rang the ambulance and they gave him a shot of adrenalin immediately and then another one on the way to the hospital, and he ended up having another three shots in hospital but his blood pressure kept falling.

“Fortunately he stabilised overnight and was discharged in the morning with an EpiPen.”

That was all back in January 2022 and since then Ms Rodier said Jackson, now 14, has been lucky enough to get into the state’s jack jumper ant allergy desensitisation program run through Melbourne’s Monash Medical clinic in Clayton.

Ms Rodier said Jackson began treatment through the Jack Jumper Ant Immunotherapy Service in mid-2023, undergoing a process which required repeat visits to the Clayton clinic to receive injections, that gradually desensitised him to the ant venom, under close monitoring.

After multiple repeat trips to the clinic for the desensitisation injections over months, the day of reckoning arrived in January. Jackson was carefully exposed again to being bitten by real jack jumper ants in a controlled and closely monitored clinic session that showed the treatment had worked.

Currently completing his year eight studies in Ballarat, the teenager now only requires maintenance shots at the Clayton clinic every two months and Ms Rodier said the need for maintenance injections will ultimately decrease further.

But she said that while some of their costs were subsidised, including a portion of initial overnight accommodation costs, the ongoing process of traveling into the city for regional dwellers who need the treatment is very onerous, costly and time-consuming.

Ms Rodier and other regional residents who have had similar experiences are now very keen to see a Ballarat satellite clinic for the Jack Jumper Ant Immunotherapy Service, which is the only one in Victoria.

Ms Rodier has lobbied several local politicians and said she has received positive initial responses from them, but has yet to see a Ballarat satellite clinic for the service become a reality.

She said that prior to the pandemic, moves had already been made toward establishing an outreach clinic for the Jack Jumper Ant Immunotherapy Service at Grampians Health’s Ballarat Base Hospital.

“But during COVID it all stalled,” she said.

“I’d just like to see a regional clinic particularly to provide the ongoing maintenance doses.”

A Monash Health spokesperson said Monash Health currently provides the Jack Jumper Ant Immunotherapy service at its hospitals and clinics in Melbourne’s South-East.

“Since opening in May 2016, the Jack Jumper Ant Immunotherapy service has supported 327 patients across Victoria,” she said.

“In the 2024-2025 financial year, the Jack Jumper Ant Immunotherapy service provided 946 episodes of care.”