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MEDIA RELEASE-September 2014

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AUSSIE DOCTORS BECOME VIRTUAL AID WORKERS

An innovative medical volunteer program will allow Australian doctors to ‘virtually volunteer’ in international relief efforts.

The Twice The Doctor Foundation allows health professionals to volunteer without ever leaving Australian clinical practice.

In partnership with UNICEF and The Fred Hollows Foundation, Twice The Doctor Foundation involves health professionals volunteering a day of pay per year which goes towards employing doctors and other healthcare workers on the ground in Africa.

Many doctors have already volunteered with funds going toward programs around the world including Sierra Leone where infant mortality is almost 8 per cent and one per cent of mothers die during childbirth.

UNICEF Health Programme aims to reduce these deaths by training over 4000 health care providers.

Twice The Doctor Director, Dr Robert Baume said the program is a way for health professionals to volunteer from their current practice.

“Many doctors and health professionals would love to volunteer in Africa or similar developing world program,” Dr Baume said.

“The realities of a busy practice and family life often prevent them from ever actually making the journey.”

The Twice The Doctor program allows doctors and other health professionals to simply donate the income from one day (about 0.5% of your annual income). Those funds are used to employ doctors and primary healthcare workers in Africa.

“It’s a way to ‘virtually’ volunteer to make a real difference and one day of pay for an Australian doctor goes a long way in Africa,” Dr Baume said.

The Twice the Doctor Foundation provides doctors with the vehicle to “virtually” make this important journey in an incredibly efficient and effective way.

“There is an enormous disparity in doctors wages between Australia and the Third World. A doctor in Africa gets about $12,000 per year and a nurse about $2,000 annually.

“One day of pay for an Australian doctor is equal to about one month for an African doctor and about six months for a nurse.

“The Twice The Doctor program allows us to amplify the power of Australian doctors.

“It’s about using our heads and our hearts to really make a difference.

Doctors Day in May ( May 21, 2015) marks the annual fundraising day for Twice the Doctor Foundation with more than 800 doctors expected to participate, with a goal of raising over $I million and thereby  providing the funding to train over 2500 primary health care workers in Africa. Doctors who volunteer can choose the program they wish to help. General public can also donate towards the program.

For more information go to www.twicethedoctor.org.au

ABOUT THE TWICE THE DOCTOR FOUNDATION

The Twice The Doctor Foundation allows doctors to work for a day in their own practice and effectively be twice the doctor for a whole month.

Twice The Doctor is a unique virtual volunteering program where doctors donate their earnings for one day per year and their earnings go towards employing a doctor in Africa for a month (or a nurse for up to six months).

More than 330 Australian doctors have already volunteered with a special annual event, Doctors Day in May planned for May 21, 2015.

Funds will go towards UNICEF Health Programme and The Fred Hollows Foundation on programs in Sierra Leone and Kenya.

In Sierra Leone, funds will go to training up to 4,000 health professionals to help reduce infant and maternal mortality. Almost 8 per cent of infants die within their first year and one per cent of mothers die during childbirth.

In Kenya, funds will go towards training local eye surgeons and eye health workers to restore sight to those who are needlessly blind. Four out of five people who are blind don’t need to be. The Fred Hollows Foundation can restore sight for as little as $25.

Doctors who volunteer can choose the program they wish to help. General public can also donate towards the program.

FUNDRAISING: AUSTRALIAN PHILANTHROPIC SERVICES – CFN/23162

For more information go to www.twicethedoctor.org.au

Ends#

Media:

Sophia Day             0425 338 410 / 02 9369 5544                                sophia@brandnewsolutions.com.au

Brittany Bennett   0423 893 531 / 02 9369 5544                                brittany@brandnewsolutions.com.au

Gill Fish                  0400 200 441 / 02 9369 5544                                gfish@brandnewsolutions.com.au

Welcome to Our Volunteer Webpage Manager

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We would like to welcome our new volunteer webpage manager Samantha Lawford to Twice the Doctor. Samantha is a first year student at the University of Sydney. Currently she is studying a Bachelor of International and Global Studies. She has given us her time and skills to assist us in managing the website. If you have any comments about the website please feel free to email her at samanthalawford@gmail.com.

Thank you note from Fred Hollows Foundation

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Subject: Thank you and Congratulations from The Fred Hollows Foundation

          Hi Rob, Jill, Brian and Lauri,

Thank you so much for inviting The Fred Hollows Foundation for the launch today. I am proudly wearing the sticker still!

Gabi said to say a huge thanks – as you could tell, she had a lot of fun in her old stomping ground!

Congratulations once again in a wonderful and successful launch. We are very humbled and grateful to be a partner of Twice of Doctor and we look forward to working with you to make this even bigger and successful in the coming years.

I have spoken to the Comms team here– they will put this on Twitter today and Facebook in the coming days. I am more than happy to also include this in our future hard copy newsletters (distributed to nearly 300,000 Australians) or our website if you think this is appropriate.

Thank you all for making this happen. One of the first “Fred Hollows” quotes I heard was “When it comes to eye surgery, there should always be a patient, a surgeon and an apprentice” and it is one of the reasons why The Foundation is able to achieve such incredible results. We pride ourselves on not being an aid organisation, (Fred was strongly against the ”fly in, fly out” model) but one that provides ‘development’ with a strong sustainable model – training local medical and support staff.

As you have heard by now, 4 out of 5 people who are blind don’t need to be. The Foundation is working hard to end avoidable blindness. In 2014, The Foundation has made a commitment to train 26 eye surgeons, 29 eye health nurses and 2,780 community health workers in Kenya alone.  Twice the Doctor’s support will go towards training these staff members so that people in Kenya have access to local skilled eye surgeons and are no longer going needlessly blind.

On behalf of Gabi and everyone at The Fred Hollows Foundation, thank you for keeping Fred’s vision alive.

Ps. I’ve attached some pictures from today’s launch!

Regards,

Harkeet.

Harkeet Sandhu |Partnerships Executive| The Fred Hollows Foundation

 

Newsletter

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Dear colleagues

Here is some news from Jules Willcocks , A&E specialist and one of our Foundation directors regarding a recent A&E conference in Noosa;

“ We had a positive response with another 20 or so sign ups and several people expressing an interest in becoming an ambassador for Twice the Doctor and taking it to their local hospital. One very positive outcome was that one of the conference exhibitors was Austwide Locums. Liz Swinnerton, who is their executive manager, has pledged her support and has offered to send out Twice the Doctor information to all their locums asking them to support us. This is about 1500 doctors! She has also said that Austwide will DONATE THEIR CUT from any shift done for TTD as well! Lastly she has given me the contact name at another locum agency who she thinks will do the same.

The next day I was down in Melbourne and met with the CEO of ACEM who pledged support from the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine. I spoke to the President of ACEM the week before who was also very supportive as was the chair of the International Emergency Medicine Special Interest Group of the college and so we now have formal support and buy in to the concept from an Australasian medical college which is excellent news”.

In other news

  1. Thanks to the excellent efforts of Tom Chesterman we now have a number

of  interns from Adelaide signed on with plans to recruit many more.

  1. Thanks to Jodie Ralph, the website-including the capacity to efficiently receive

donations is close to completion.

  1. Denis Crimmins has expertly organised design and printing of posters which is virtually completed.

The momentum that you, as participants have created, continues to grow!

Let us not forget our purpose and our vision of creating a major movement in order to make a really significant contribution to Third World Health.

Regards to all

Rob Baume

PS:  Less than 4 weeks till 21st of May and our inaugural Doctors day in May.

 

(We are hoping to receive your donations soon after.)

 

Newsletter

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Dear Colleagues,

We have made some further significant progress as follows:

1)      Antonia (Toni) Pearson, previously a registrar at Gosford and now at Royal North Shore Hospital presented our concept to RMOs at RNSH resulting in 31 new doctors on board (ie: about 90% of her audience). Welcome RNSH residents and interns – your support is greatly appreciated! And well done, Toni! (who also passed her written primary exams, just by-the-by).

2)      Douglas Pathology has kindly offered to sponsor the printing and distribution of posters and Certificates of Appreciation. This helps ensure that we keep the Foundation’s costs to a minimum so your eventual donation goes further.

3)      Website construction has advanced and you can get a look at https://twicethedoctor.org.au/

There is an updated slide presentation posted – please send the link to your medical colleagues if you think they might be interested. Here is a testimonial from Daniella Potter. WHERE’S YOURS?!! It would really help in building the website and really make a difference in recruiting other doctors to our concept

Newsletter

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Since I last wrote, we have made significant progress as follows.

1.    Largely through the efforts of Judith Fiander from Australian Philanthropic Services, the Twice the Doctor Foundation is now a reality and licensed to receive fully tax deductible contributions. From all I have gleaned, this is quite an achievement.

2.    On the advice of one of our enthusiastic supporters and promoters ophthalmologist Brian Harrisberg from Newtown, I have met with the Fred Hollows Foundation who are very excited about ophthalmologists supporting the Twice the Doctor concept linking in with a project in Africa to train eye surgeons. They have offered all sorts of support to enhance our efforts.

3.    Ravi Agarwal, head of Mediq Financial, has reiterated his commitment and excitement about our Foundation. He has also reaffirmed his very generous offer to do the Foundation’s accounting pro-bono. This would normally cost about $10,000 per year. His generous offer not only illustrates the type of support our project can garner but also allows our administration costs to be kept to a minimum, thereby further leveraging the value of your eventual contribution.

4.    With great assistance from Jodie Ralph, our website is being professionally built. It is envisaged that this will be a vehicle for attracting new volunteers and non-medical supporters, collecting funds, issuing receipts and providing feedback to contributors about what your donation achieved. So it is essential we get this right. The cost for building the website, the first years support and for establishing the Foundation has been borne by the Directors, so your eventual contribution is in no way diluted.