so the year is 1952 and a vaccine is
discovered at the University of
Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania a vaccine
which prevents the contraction of polio
in 1985 some 30 years later there was
still 150,000 cases of polio recorded in
fast-forward to January 2014 another 30
years and 62 years from when that
vaccine was first discovered the Prime
Minister of India a third world country
in the country of my birth
finally finally announces the
eradication of polio well what an
amazing achievement
and all thanks to the hard work of
doctors and the wonders of modern
medicine
am I correct well not entirely in fact
to a large extent it was due to the
combined efforts of the Indian
government Rotary International and the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who
together found a way to effectively
deliver a repeat deliver a treatment
which had existed for the past 62 years
and in doing so prevent a lifetime of
misery anguish and suffering for many
many future generations now the year is
2017 and the countries Australia a first
world country two men one from the city
the other from the country wake up one
morning with a dull pain in their chest
the first man picks up the phone and
makes an appointment he ducks out on his
lunch break to see a cardiologist he
steps onto a treadmill to have a cardiac
stress test and the test is grossly
abnormal he’s rushed to hospital where
he undergoes open-heart surgery and he
survives much to the relief of his
wife and young family well the other
poor fellow well he lives 1,200
kilometers from the city he faces a
three-day round trip to see a
cardiologist and have a stress test and
his poor wife’s recovering from a hip
replacement and as it’s just rained
there’s crops to be planted quickly with
China he can do because recent times in
drought and financial pressures it’s
meant fewer workers so he reluctantly
resigns himself to the thought that well
maybe this pain is just reflux or
indigestion
the next day he fails to come home and
he’s found dead in the field
clutching a handful of antacids he
leaves behind a grieving wife a young
family a struggling farm and a community
in distress if only he had access to a
stress test in a cardiologist a test
which has existed since the 1950s
if only then he too would have a chance
of surviving you may be surprised to
know that in Australia a first world
country if you live outside our major
cities you’re nearly twice as likely to
die of heart disease and it’s not
because we don’t have the medicine or
the treatments to help those people
that’s simply because to a large extent
we haven’t found a way to effectively
deliver the same medicine the same
treatments which people in the cities
have had at their doorsteps and to some
extent taken for granted for generations
we should not tolerate health inequity
such as that simply due to a lack of
services we need to sort out the
delivery chain and we should do it
because we can do it and that’s where
the heart of Australia truck comes in I
built a 25 metre cardiac and respiratory
clinic on wheels to bring not just
people like myself specialists but all
the equipment you need to the heart of
those remote communities from ultrasound
machines to cardiac stress testing
machines Hartree the monitoring machines
lung function testing machines
sleep apnea testing machines essentially
everything you’d find if you were to
walk into Maya city cardiology practice
and what it means in a very practical
sense is when you’re hundreds of
kilometres seeing patients you’re not
just there with your stethoscope but you
have all the tools and equipment you
need to actually do your job to close
that loop from symptom to diagnosis to
treatment or within the one visit and by
doing so potentially save a life in fact
in the first six months that the heart
of Australia program was launched nine
patients nine patients were referred for
open-heart surgery nine patients who
might be dead if not for the simple fact
that they stepped onto that truck when
it rolled into town 13 communities
across the state who in most cases had
very little now have at their doorstep a
state-of-the-art cardiac and respiratory
since launch of the program just over
three years ago over 4,000 patients have
benefited and we anticipate that
somewhere between 120 and 150 lives have
been saved ladies and gentlemen I put it
to you that if the great advances in
health and medicine in our time thus far
have been sanitation vaccinations and
penicillin then the mobilization of
medicine for the masses has the
potential to be equally significant we
must accept that medicine as a
discipline insofar as what it can offer
humanity we need to not just develop
treatments but find effective ways of
delivering those treatments to those who
need it and when I talk about the
mobilisation of medicine I don’t just
mean trucks but by whatever means trucks
planes boats an army of volunteers
telemedicine the mobilization of
medicine for the masses and why because
every life counts in the words of Victor
Hugo there is nothing more powerful than
an idea whose time has come and insofar
as bringing the medicine to the people I believe I believe that time has come
discovered at the University of
Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania a vaccine
which prevents the contraction of polio
in 1985 some 30 years later there was
still 150,000 cases of polio recorded in
fast-forward to January 2014 another 30
years and 62 years from when that
vaccine was first discovered the Prime
Minister of India a third world country
in the country of my birth
finally finally announces the
eradication of polio well what an
amazing achievement
and all thanks to the hard work of
doctors and the wonders of modern
medicine
am I correct well not entirely in fact
to a large extent it was due to the
combined efforts of the Indian
government Rotary International and the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who
together found a way to effectively
deliver a repeat deliver a treatment
which had existed for the past 62 years
and in doing so prevent a lifetime of
misery anguish and suffering for many
many future generations now the year is
2017 and the countries Australia a first
world country two men one from the city
the other from the country wake up one
morning with a dull pain in their chest
the first man picks up the phone and
makes an appointment he ducks out on his
lunch break to see a cardiologist he
steps onto a treadmill to have a cardiac
stress test and the test is grossly
abnormal he’s rushed to hospital where
he undergoes open-heart surgery and he
survives much to the relief of his
wife and young family well the other
poor fellow well he lives 1,200
kilometers from the city he faces a
three-day round trip to see a
cardiologist and have a stress test and
his poor wife’s recovering from a hip
replacement and as it’s just rained
there’s crops to be planted quickly with
China he can do because recent times in
drought and financial pressures it’s
meant fewer workers so he reluctantly
resigns himself to the thought that well
maybe this pain is just reflux or
indigestion
the next day he fails to come home and
he’s found dead in the field
clutching a handful of antacids he
leaves behind a grieving wife a young
family a struggling farm and a community
in distress if only he had access to a
stress test in a cardiologist a test
which has existed since the 1950s
if only then he too would have a chance
of surviving you may be surprised to
know that in Australia a first world
country if you live outside our major
cities you’re nearly twice as likely to
die of heart disease and it’s not
because we don’t have the medicine or
the treatments to help those people
that’s simply because to a large extent
we haven’t found a way to effectively
deliver the same medicine the same
treatments which people in the cities
have had at their doorsteps and to some
extent taken for granted for generations
we should not tolerate health inequity
such as that simply due to a lack of
services we need to sort out the
delivery chain and we should do it
because we can do it and that’s where
the heart of Australia truck comes in I
built a 25 metre cardiac and respiratory
clinic on wheels to bring not just
people like myself specialists but all
the equipment you need to the heart of
those remote communities from ultrasound
machines to cardiac stress testing
machines Hartree the monitoring machines
lung function testing machines
sleep apnea testing machines essentially
everything you’d find if you were to
walk into Maya city cardiology practice
and what it means in a very practical
sense is when you’re hundreds of
kilometres seeing patients you’re not
just there with your stethoscope but you
have all the tools and equipment you
need to actually do your job to close
that loop from symptom to diagnosis to
treatment or within the one visit and by
doing so potentially save a life in fact
in the first six months that the heart
of Australia program was launched nine
patients nine patients were referred for
open-heart surgery nine patients who
might be dead if not for the simple fact
that they stepped onto that truck when
it rolled into town 13 communities
across the state who in most cases had
very little now have at their doorstep a
state-of-the-art cardiac and respiratory
since launch of the program just over
three years ago over 4,000 patients have
benefited and we anticipate that
somewhere between 120 and 150 lives have
been saved ladies and gentlemen I put it
to you that if the great advances in
health and medicine in our time thus far
have been sanitation vaccinations and
penicillin then the mobilization of
medicine for the masses has the
potential to be equally significant we
must accept that medicine as a
discipline insofar as what it can offer
humanity we need to not just develop
treatments but find effective ways of
delivering those treatments to those who
need it and when I talk about the
mobilisation of medicine I don’t just
mean trucks but by whatever means trucks
planes boats an army of volunteers
telemedicine the mobilization of
medicine for the masses and why because
every life counts in the words of Victor
Hugo there is nothing more powerful than
an idea whose time has come and insofar
as bringing the medicine to the people I believe I believe that time has come
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