Last year, the National Prescribing Service gave grants to 16 organisations in rural areas to enable them to run community projects on the quality use of medicines. The Tamworth Senior Citizens Centre Committee was one of these organisations. They received a grant to hold seminars in Tamworth and five surrounding towns in New South Wales. So far, they have held three events in Barraba, Manilla and Nundle, towns of about 2500, 1200 and 200 people respectively. Three more seminars will take place in 2005.

President Jim Finucane spoke to MedicinesTalk about the challenges of organising community events for older people in small country towns.

‘Our first challenge was finding pharmacists and doctors who could come to the events and answer questions from older people. We have a drastic shortage of GPs and pharmacists in our area, and the ones that we do have can’t leave their surgery or shop to come to events during the day. I also had to have a crash course in which organisations they all belong to, and how to contact them. For example, it took me some time to discover that the GPs in Barraba and Manilla belong to a different GP organisation to the ones in Tamworth. 

‘We eventually succeeded in finding relieving and retired pharmacists who could come, and in Barraba the local GP was able to come for an hour — all at no cost to us. Our experience is that it’s really important, particularly in rural areas, to get a local pharmacist involved or one who knows the area. It breaks the ice. It’s no good having a "blow in". It’s also important to have speakers that can explain things in ordinary language.

Jim Finucane, Amanda Bray and Dr John Trollor in Tamworth at the launch of the seminars.
Photo supplied courtesy of The Northern Daily Leader Tamworth.

‘The other challenge was getting older people interested in coming. I know from the Tamworth Senior Citizens that most older people take  medicines, some as many as 20 pills a day, but it’s quite another thing to get them to come to a meeting about medicines.

‘We sent letters to every club and group in each of the towns, and drew on every contact we had. In Barraba the Home and Community Care people were very helpful and took flyers about the meeting to everyone who gets meals on wheels and all their other clients.

‘Me and another chap delivered flyers to every house in the town, and put posters in the doctor’s surgery, pharmacy and hospital. We also put an ad in the local paper.

‘For the Nundle meeting, we also wanted to reach people in the neighbouring village of Dungowan. When we enquired at the Dungowan store, the post office lady kindly offered to deliver flyers to all of the village’s 50 addresses. 

‘But, probably the most important thing you need to do if you’re organising an event like ours is to find the people who know everybody in town and are members of several organisations in the town, and get them on side. You need to talk to them and, if possible, get them to invite you to their meetings to talk about your event. For example, in Woolomin, we called into a CWA meeting, and spoke to 10 or 12 ladies. As a result, three of them travelled to Nundle for our event. Ideally, you would hold the event at their regular meeting rather than expect them to come to you, but it would probably be impossible to get a doctor or pharmacist who was able to take part.’