MP praises local helpers

WITH National Volunteer Week just around the corner, Euroa MP Annabelle Cleeland met recently with members of the Heathcote Royal Flying Doctor Service community transport team, Heathcote Fire Brigade and Heathcote SES.

She said these organisations were some of many that played an important role in the district.

“These groups are such valuable assets to the Heathcote community, ensuring that the region remains safe and has access to top-class levels of care,” she said.

“Volunteers are the lifeblood of regional communities and I want to thank them for the countless hours they spend delivering incredible experiences and services to their towns.

“After meeting with these groups, it is clear how much they enjoy servicing the community and the feeling is certainly reciprocated.”

RFDS community transport team leader Erin Foster said the service started in Heathcote in 2018.

“It was a pilot project in partnership with Heathcote Health,” she said. “We weren’t really sure how it would go.

“We knew the need was there in the community, but we weren’t sure what the uptake would be.

“Since then we’ve done over 25,000 transports. We added the site in Rochester in 2021 and we’ve since expanded to Numurkah, Warracknabeal and Foster.”

Ms Foster said the service was growing rapidly.

“We’ve got several more sites underway with another five setting up in the next couple of months, but Heathcote’s been very much the starting point,” she said,

“We operate a nine to five service getting people to their health and well-being appointments in the Heathcote region and we can’t do it without our amazing volunteer drivers.

“There are about 30 of them in the Heathcote area, many of whom have been with the service for five years.

“It’s an incredible team and we are actively looking for new drivers to keep things going.”

Ms Foster stressed that there was plenty of support available for RFDS volunteers.

“We provide full training and there are a lot of checks and balances we go through to make sure that everyone is safe,” she said.

“If your grandmother was travelling with the service, you’d want to know that the drivers were up to scratch.

“It’s a really great crew, who really love what they’re doing.”

Heathcote Fire Brigade Captain Carl Watkins said local emergency services were also actively looking for new members.

“We could certainly use more operational firefighters, especially during the day,” he said.

“We’re pretty right for non-operational people and we’re doing what we need to do during the day, but it’s just the same handful of people.”

For information about the RFDS volunteer driver program visit https://www.flyingdoctor.org.au/vic/what-we-do/community-transport/ or call 7046 4664.

To find out about volunteering with the fire brigade visit https://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/volunteers-careers/volunteer-with-cfa and for the SES visit https://www.ses.vic.gov.au/join-us/volunteer