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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-02-04 Daily Xml
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CRONIN, DR S.

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN (15:31): I rise today to commend Dr Sheilagh Cronin, who is a rural doctor based in Cloncurry in Queensland and who was the recipient of an inaugural award at the joint conference of the Rural Doctors Association of Australia and the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine. This took place in Sydney in October last year. Dr Cronin is said to have gone beyond the call of duty in providing medical care to many rural communities across Queensland and was awarded the inaugural Peter Graham 'Cohuna' Award for her exceptional services to rural and remote communities.

The award remembers the work of Dr Peter Graham, who died last year aged 80. Dr Graham was a highly committed rural doctor who provided dedicated medical service to the Victorian town of Cohuna for almost 50 years before he retired in 2002. He was the first president of the Rural Doctors Association of Victoria and was a recipient of the Order of Australia.

Dr Sheilagh Cronin is an international medical graduate from the UK who graduated from the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School in 1980 and completed GP training in Norwich in 1985. In the same year, Dr Cronin emigrated to Australia and began her career as a rural GP in Queensland. For the past 23 years she has dedicated her working life to improving medical services in the bush, especially in the area of women's and indigenous health.

Of special note is her pioneering of a women's flying doctor clinic in 1993. Dr Cronin set up visiting GP clinics for women in remote south-west Queensland communities where access to gender specific services was non-existent. Going beyond providing GP services, when Dr Cronin noticed that local women were complaining of a lack of child behavioural services, she recruited a local child psychiatrist to also visit these communities.

There were other issues that some of the local women had where they talked about the difficulty in gaining access to ordinary services that most of us would take for granted, such as hairdressing, so there were occasions when Dr Cronin and the crew took a hairdresser with them on these remote flights, which was of great benefit to the local community as something which was quite simple but which provided a great deal of comfort and was a service that was easy to access rather than travelling hundreds of kilometres.

These visiting clinics led to setting up the Remote Women's Health Service, which later became the national Royal Flying Doctor Women's Service 15 years ago. Dr Cronin managed the Central West Queensland Division of General Practice for nine years until 2002 and was a board member for five years of the Queensland Rural Medical Support Agency since its formation in 1997. Becoming more involved in her role, Dr Cronin left her Longreach practice and started providing locum relief for rural doctors which led to her meeting two other doctors who saw a glaring need for a suitable medical workforce in the Cloncurry area.

Together, these doctors used their own resources and determination to establish a much needed medical service. It has gone from a crisis situation of one doctor trained to manage a large rural practice to the present five doctors in two linked practices that are committed teaching practices with students, registrars and medical graduates on prevocational placements. Dr Cronin has received a number of awards, including the AMA award for individual achievement. She is currently a medical adviser to Health Workforce Queensland and holds an adjunct associate professorship at the James Cook University School of Medicine.

Dr Cronin has championed the health service needs and general needs of rural communities and has been a passionate advocate for support for rural doctors, their well-being and that of their families. I commend Dr Cronin for her work and congratulate her on winning the Peter Graham Cohuna Award 2008—the first award to be issued—and, indeed, commend all those doctors in this state and across the country who do so much valuable work for rural communities.

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