From the President

GAVIN FINKELSTEIN

President, Haemophilia Foundation Australia

Here we are already in September, and it’s time to be preparing our annual reporting either at our state/territory Foundations or for the HFA annual general meeting which is coming up in late October.

I have recently written to the Hon Mark Butler, the new Minister for Health and Aged Care to welcome him to the portfolio. We are currently seeking to renegotiate grants so that we can continue to provide governments with advice and national peak body services to our community. I have also recently contributed my experiences to a government consultation about improving public transport and parking for people with joint and mobility problems. 

LIVING WITH COVID-19

We have all been going through challenging times with COVID-19 still impacting, even if in different ways from the first two years of the pandemic. It is exciting that some of our Foundations are planning face-to-face events for this end of the year and we hope they will go ahead without interruption. We know how much our peer support groups and camp attendees like to get together and for some it has now been a few years since they have seen each other. Many of our health professionals have not been able to take breaks and we think of them as they have continued to provide services for our community. 

We have learned new ways of communicating and to do things differently and I doubt we will return to our old normal. You will see in this issue of National Haemophilia that the 2022 WFH World Congress was a hybrid face-to-face and virtual event – and indeed, some of the sessions discussed the ongoing impact of COVID-19 and virtual health.

I think it’s fair to say that many people in our community have learned to communicate with their health professionals at their Haemophilia Treatment Centre via telehealth, when they had not anticipated this could be successful. We need to be able to connect effectively to our Haemophilia Treatment Centre specialists, and of course also having a local General Practitioner who is also in the loop is critical to our best care plan. 

NEW HFA DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS

If you use the HFA website regularly, you will see we are making changes all the time, and we hope the new information is helpful. Some people may not have seen some of the sessions from our 2021 national Conference. We are pleased that we’ve been able to make some of the presentations or parts of the presentations available on the website so you can catch up. You will also see a variety of other new education resources and information that might be of interest to you and family members. I recommend a browse on the website www.haemophilia.org.au.  

Younger people in our community might also be interested in the information and personal stories on our youth website www.factoredin.org.au. You may have noticed that we are venturing into new territory on our social media platforms, with short videos, Reels – and now TikTok! We are celebrating our new TikTok platform with a competition to flush out the talent in our community – check the details on our HFA and Factored In websites. 

We are working hard to make sure all parts of our community have the information, resources and