PANELLISTS

Speakers - Forum 1 - Consumer Partnerships Going Digital: Bridge or barrier?

  • Jim Madden

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    Jim Madden

    Jim Madden is currently the Consumer Representative who chairs the Darling Downs Health Region’s Consumer Consultative Committee. He is 83 years old and describes his involvement with the hospitals and health services of the Downs as his third career.

    As a young man he worked as a Catholic priest in a number of locations and undertook hospital chaplaincies during those appointments. Hospital work was a highlight of his ministry where he often undertook the roles of friend, support and advocate for patients and their families.

    Later he trained as a teacher and gained wide experience, not just in classrooms, but also in the areas of course development, community education and distance education. He has assisted prisoners with studies and taught literacy and numeracy skills to unemployed adults. Jim also worked as tutor at the University of Southern Queensland where he gained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for his oral history based thesis.

    Jim has represented consumers on several committees of the Toowoomba Base Hospital, is the consumer representative on the Queensland Health Rural and Remote Advisory Committee. During 2020, he acted as a commission for Health Consumers of Australia when they conducted an investigation into the rapid changes in the provision of health care throughout Australia.

    Jim lives with his wife, Doreen, a retired instrumental music teacher, in Toowoomba. They both look on each day as an opportunity for a new adventure.

  • Alex Markwell

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    Alex Markwell
    Chair of the Queensland Clinical Senate

    Dr Alex Markwell is a Senior Staff Specialist at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital Emergency and Trauma Centre and Senior Lecturer with the University of Queensland. Alex is passionate about healthcare provider health, wellbeing, work-life flexibility, and is founding member of Wellness Resilience and Performance in Emergency Medicine. She is also a Past President of AMA Queensland.

  • John Anderson

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    John Anderson

    What do you have when you add together:
    • An Aboriginal Elder with a blend of husband, father, grandfather, uncle, brother, cousin, and son roles.
    • Three formal tertiary qualifications across engineering, social science and communications plus vocational certificate in training and assessment.
    • Liberal sprinkling of volunteer roles in diverse organisations including health, disability sports, community services, child and family protection, fundraising and advocacy.
    • Key Ministerial appointments and advisory roles in health, education, arts, social justice, crime and corruption.
    • Two parts musician/sports and pain relief plus traditional old-style Hawaiian massage therapist glazed with tropical rainforest and desert scrub therapies.
    • Fifteen years of small business ownership coupled with 30 years in government at senior levels.
    • A personable and likable disposition with wide-ranging knowledge and experiences polished through the lens of a skilled negotiator, facilitator, mediator, and respectful thought leader who thrives on chaos while relishing order?

    A Critical Friend… who’ll diplomatically unpick the Emperor’s new clothes in favour of truth ‘towelling’, challenge thinking when growth and creativity is needed, and who’ll be the sounding board of ethics, harmonics and diviner of consistency and authenticity.

  • Peter Tully

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    Peter Tully

    Peter with his wife Linda work to ensure people with disability in the Ipswich community and beyond have information, build their knowledge collectively, and speak with a united voice on a range of issues that directly affect people with disability across Queensland.

    Peter is actively involved in a number of organisations in different capacities.  He is a volunteer, advocate, keynote speaker, IT consultant, group convenor, housing champion, Peer-to-Peer leader and consultant for organisations such as Queenslanders with Disability Network via QDeNgage raising Disability Community Awareness.

    Peter engages with people with disability, their families, service providers, local Councils, State and Members of Parliament to seek and provide information in his key areas of interest which are; Advocacy, Health, Housing, NDIS.

    Utilising his years of business experience and the richness of his lived experience of disability, Peter sits on a number of National and State Committee’s, the Ipswich Hospital Community Reference Group, the QDN Board and is an active Consumer with HCQ and PHN.

    Achievements that Peter and Linda are most proud of are their work establishing the Fresh Futures Market nearly ten years ago which is now all-over South-East Queensland the Workability Forums and being the Every Australia Counts Queensland Champions.

    Always with their sights fixed on creating connections with communities, Peter and Linda continue to be unwavering in their advocacy and support of people disability.

    www.petertully.com.au

Speakers - Forum 2 - Sharing Power: showcasing successful consumer-led co-design

  • Phil Carswell

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    Phil Carswell

    Phil Carswell OAM has been a life-long activist in education, the Union movement, the gay community and as a leader during the Australian AIDS epidemic. He was the first President of the Victorian AIDS Council and sat on all the major AIDS policy and funding national committees during the first 15 years of the epidemic. He has worked as a volunteer and a paid worker in the health field for most of his life and also as a recipient of significant health care having received a kidney transplant in August 2019. He has long been an advocate for the development of active partnerships in health, having had direct experience of such models during HIV/AIDS. He is now retired but still active in kidney health policy development, acting as a consumer representative on a number of hospital and HHS committees, such as the Clinical Senate as well as being the consumer representative on the Sexual Health Ministerial Advisory Committee.

  • Amber Williamson

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    Amber Williamson

    Amber Williamson blends over 25 years of professional Marketing, Engagement, Customer Service and Management experience with international and national corporates, not-for-profits and healthcare with her own personal kidney consumer journey to deliver Consumer and Community Engagement reform.

    Amber Williamson is the Senior Engagement Advisor, Metro South Health Consumer Partnering where she is responsible for establishing systematic consumer partnering foundation. This includes the development of engagement strategy, formation of effective governance, resource production and program delivery that enables meaningful consumer partnerships to flourish throughout Metro South Health. Over the past 4 years, Amber has successfully project managed strategic healthcare engagement programs, supported Metro South Health Consumer Network, with over 100 Consumer members and in 2020 coordinated COVID-19 MSH Consumer Network engagement response.

    Amber’s passion for shifting internal practice within healthcare to ensure the consumer voice is central to decision making, delivers healthcare improvement.

  • Leonie Sanderson

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    Leonie Sanderson

    Leonie Sanderson is an Engagement Advisor with Health Consumers Queensland, with a focus on young people and mental health. Leonie has over 20 years of experience in engagement and design, policy and innovation. She believes that the best way to achieve real, lasting change in the health system is to enable people to be equal partners in their healthcare. Leonie’s advocacy began early when she staged a puppet show in Grade 3 to raise money for Deaf Children Australia. From working in women’s health to developing social policy to building mobile apps, Leonie is committed to making sure the voice of consumers is heard and acted upon. She also loves strong black coffee and cannot resist an offer of chocolate.

  • Vanessa Buiskool

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    Vanessa Buiskool

    Vanessa Buiskool has the primary role of Carer for a family member who has experienced both Severe and Complex Mental Health concerns, trauma and lives with Physical Disability. For 6 years Vanessa has contributed to High Level Strategic Planning and System Innovation and Improvement through Carer Representative roles with HCQ and Queensland Health.Vanessa is a current member of Queensland Mental Health Week working Group as a Lived Experienced Representative. Vanessa values including simple Art practices in daily life as a vehicle towards Mental well-being.

Speakers - Forum 3 - Why do you think I am hard to reach?

  • Ellie Buchan

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    Ellie Buchan

    Ellie is a 25-year-old young woman who has been a lifelong consumer of Queensland’s public healthcare system  due to  a diagnosis of Quadapliec Cerebal Palsy from birth. As a result of her experience as a young person engaging with healthcare services in Queensland, Ellie has become a passionate advocate for creating a healthcare system, that provides a person centred, holistic approach to patient care for young people experiencing illness.

    Ellie is currently a patient at the Mater Hospital in Brisbane, she serves as a Consumer Representative for the Mater Youth Consultancy. Ellie aims to use her lived experience to help inform the delivery and design of services that are provided to patients at the Mater Young Adult Centre in Brisbane. In addition to her role with  the Mater Youth Consultancy, Ellie also serves as a consumer representative for Health Consumers Queensland’s Youth Reference Group.

    Ellie is also actively involved with the Statewide Persistent Pain Clinical Network’s Child, Adolesent and Young Adult Persistent Pain Project which aims to improve pain services for children and young people throughout Queensland. Ellie has previously spoken at the Queensland Clinical Senate into Adolescent to Young Adult Care and is now part of a working group, to help implement the Senate’s recommendations.

    In January 2021, Ellie commenced a consumer representative role on the Queensland Child and Youth Clinical Network’s Clinician Collaborative, becoming the  first patient representative and the youngest person appointed to the role in the network’s ten-year history.

  • Anne Curtis

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    Anne Curtis
    Engagement Consultant - Specific Projects, Health Consumers Queensland

    Anne undertakes projects on behalf of Queensland Health and other health related organisations using the Kitchen Table Discussion methodology. This enables consumers and carers to lead consultation within their own communities and reach out to those who may not participate in more formal consultation, or have their voice heard.

    Anne is also a member of the Queensland Prisoner Health and Wellbeing Leadership Group and undertakes consultation with prisoners within Queensland Correctional Centres, and also provides training to health staff in regard to prisoner rights to health care and consumer engagement.

  • Christos Papadopoulos

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    Christos Papadopoulos

    Christos inherited his dad’s strong community spirit and passion for political action that creates equity, and facilitates community capital and sustainability.

    It was a 100-year-old carved Boab tree nut that had brought Chris to Australia, with a wonder to find out about the people that carved it. 

    He started his life in Perth, where he became one of the founding members of the WA Nuclear Disarmament Party, which created world history by electing an anti-nuclear Senator.  Then he spent almost nine years with his family traversing Australia meeting people and media, informing about the problems with Nuclear power.

    His travel brought him into the Top End, where he had the opportunity to work with community Elders to develop GP facilities and GP housing that allowed for General practice doctors to be employed into communities previously serviced intermittently by fly in doctors. 

    It was here he met his wife who was managing a research organisation in indigenous health.

    Whisked to Victoria, he worked as stakeholder relations manager in a major public health regulation change, negotiating with Victorian food businesses and the public. 

    He then followed with work in consumer rights, where he brought together financially disadvantaged people and utility companies, in an effort to find ways of dealing with consumer debt  in a way that does not leave families destitute. 

    The cold and the big city stress were enough for him to move to Brisbane where he produced videos relating to mental health, worked in developing policy, procedures and complaints management, ending his working career as a senior Tribunal manager relating to Indigenous affairs.

    He is passionate about the value of health consumers in all the stages of Health services and policy and would like to see consumer involvement in other areas of government such as Centrelink as a way of nullifying departmental decisions that inflict trauma on the most disadvantaged in our society.

  • Hamza Vayani

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    Hamza Vayani

    Hamza currently holds several appointments in a range health and mental health related roles from a lived experience carer and health consumer informed policy making and advocacy perspective.

    Current pieces of work Hamza is engaged with leading includes the role State-wide Consumer Coordinator for the Queensland Centre for Perinatal & Infant Mental Health, strategic lead for the World Wellness Group Multicultural Connect Line, a community reference group member for AHPRA, member of the Royal Australian College of Physicians Consumer Advisory Group and the Royal Australian General Practitioners Shaping a Healthy Australia Working Group and tutor with the University of Queensland focused on public policy development. 

    Prior to these roles Hamza was an inaugural member of the Health Consumers Queensland Collaborative, an advisory council member of the Queensland Mental Health Commission and board member for Brisbane South Primary Health Network.  He also led and facilitated establishing a national network of consumers and carers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds across Australia, publication of a spotlight report at the request of the Australian government National Mental Health Commission that unequivocally exposed the lack of data collection and analysis about access, experience and outcomes to mental health and suicide prevention programmes effectively engaging people of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and development of the Framework for Mental Health in Multicultural Australia as Executive Officer for Mental Health in Multicultural Australia.

    Hamza is not afraid of asking the difficult questions when it comes to reducing stigma, marginalisation and discrimination impacting on physical and mental health wellbeing outcomes. He is known for bold and big picture thinking and believes public policy should be informed by the lived experience of the communities we serve in a way that is inclusive, evidence based and without fear or favour. 

  • Trisha Hansen

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    Trisha Hansen
    Senior Engagement Officer - West Moreton Health

    Truly “Caring Better Together” – West Moreton Health’s promise to the community – involves genuine engagement and partnership with consumers and community, at every level.

    With a professional background in corporate and community services management, Trisha applies her experience and skills from working with consumers and community in a Local Government context, to a hospital and health service setting.

    As the Senior Engagement Officer at West Moreton Health, Trisha’s passion for facilitating meaningful discussions, empowering consumers to have a voice and ensuring community voices are heard, has helped improve the services West Moreton Health provides.

    Sharing her expertise with the organisation, and implementing community-led development methodologies as a foundation in her work, means those in the community who can be difficult to reach and hear, can actively partner on key initiatives.

Speakers - Forum 4 - Value-based healthcare - What it means for all of us

  • Dr Joan Carlini

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    Dr Joan Carlini

    Dr Joan Carlini is a strategic and outcome-focused researcher with extensive experience in social advocacy in health, and business sectors. Dr Carlini is expert in marketing person-centred approaches in health and engagement collaboratively with a range of stakeholders driving policy change. Recognised as a leader in this field, she often presents at industry and government events, and has progressed changes to policy for involving people in decision-making and participatory research methods. 

    Dr Carlini is highly regarded in user-experience in health research and is the former founding Chair of the Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service Consumer Advisory Group (CAG), member of the GCHHS Board Research Committee, Clinical Trial Steering Committee, Menzies Health Institute Queensland Patient-Centered Health Services Associate Member, and co-chairs the Centre for Research Excellence in Wiser Wound Care Consumer Committee. 

  • Harpreet Kalsi

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    Harpreet Kalsi

    Harpreet Kalsi is of Indian heritage and was born in Kenya. She has worked with marginalised communities in Australia and abroad specialising in health, wellbeing and developing creative and innovative projects. Her own family’s experience in dispossession of land and country led her to a strong affinity for working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. She is also a passionate advocate about improving end of life and aged care in Australia and also works as an end of life doula.

    Harpreet’s passion to advocate and work in end of life care commenced after supporting her family care for her mother during her final months. Her own experience in losing a baby and supporting those around her who have recently lost loved ones from cancer, dementia and old age has further driven her to work for better care for all approaching end of life.

    Harpreet is a consumer representative for Clinical Excellence Queensland and is on a number of Care at End of Life working groups, along with being a Consumer Representative for Palliative Care Australia and Director at Aboriginal Social Change Agency – Cox Inall Ridgeway. She holds a MA in Conflict Resolution. 

  • Helen Mees

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    Helen Mees

    Helen Mees is an active health consumer, committed to working collaboratively.  She has had a keen interest in hospital services since developing kidney disease in her 20's. After treatment for breast cancer in 2009, her recovery plan included training and walking over 600 kilometres in Spain, in 2012.  

    Helen served as the inaugural Chair of Health Consumers Queensland’s Consumer Advisory Group and is actively involved with Kidney Health Australia. Helen is a passionate and committed health consumer representative who never hesitates to remind decision-makers of the importance of including consumers in decisions that affect them.

  • Morne Terblanche

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    Morne Terblanche

    Dr Morne Terblanche graduated medical school in Pretoria, South Africa prior to completing specialist training in Anaesthetics at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg.  He relocated to Australia in 2006, commencing in Bundaberg as an Area of Need Specialist in Anaesthetics, progressing to Director of Anaesthetics and ICU.  Whilst here he received a Queensland Government Australia Day Medal for services to Telehealth; and the Anaesthetic Department received its first ever accreditation for specialist training.

    In 2010 Dr Terblanche relocated to the Sunshine Coast and commenced at the Nambour General Hospital, where he worked as both Deputy Director and Director of the Anaesthetic Department.  In 2012 he completed a Masters in Health Management from the University of New South Wales.  Dr Terblanche is the co-author of several research papers, primarily focused on improving healthcare through evidence-based medicine.

    Currently Dr Terblanche works across dual roles as both Senior Medical Officer Anaesthetics and Medical Lead, Safety and Quality at the Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service.  He is also co-chair of the Sunshine Coast HHS Clinical Council, Chair of the local Choosing Wisely Faculty, Co-chair of the State-wide Anaesthetic and Perioperative  Network, sits on several other committees and is a Squadron Leader in the RAAF specialist reserves attached to 1 Expeditionary Health Squadron.