A vision becomes reality: Northern Adelaide Health and Wellbeing Partnership
15 July 2022
In May this year, 18 organisations representing government agencies, local councils, universities, research institutions, private investors and non-government health care providers signed a Memorandum of Understanding as partners committed to improving the health and wellbeing of our northern suburb's community.
“With the Lyell McEwin Hospital one of the State’s three tertiary hospitals, plans for further developing a health precinct surrounding the hospital have been under consideration for some time,” said Melanie Schmidtke, recently appointed as Director of the Northern Adelaide Health and Wellbeing Partnership.
With population growth also comes social, education, training and employment needs, says Melanie Schmidtke. Photographed at Tea Tree Plaza Interchange.
Over the last 12 months those plans have evolved to consider not just the Playford Health Precinct development, but the broader health and wellbeing needs of the Northern Adelaide region.
“Our stakeholder groups identified there was greater benefit in broadening the vision to encompass not just health related sectors but support industries and other sectors with the potential for growth in the North,” said Melanie.
The vision for Northern Adelaide Health and Wellbeing Partnership is to create a flourishing and vibrant health and wellbeing community, that together can attract and increase research, education, health and wellbeing opportunities, as well as economic benefit through employment and future growth.
“We know the Northern Adelaide region has the fastest growing metropolitan population in South Australia, so there will continue to be increased demand for health services," said Melanie.
“But it’s not just health services that need to match a growing community, with population growth also comes social, education, training and employment needs.”
With the closure of Holden's, and the subsequent downturn in engineering and manufacturing needs, the health sector has now become the region’s biggest employer. This has created a growing need for skilled health workers and opportunities for local people to enter that workforce.
Successful collaborative models such as the Westmead Innovation District (NSW) have shown the value of partnerships in delivering a coordinated approach to education and career pathways, particularly in health-related fields.
“The partnership will serve to highlight the Northern Adelaide region as a place to not only do business, but to live, work and play. Working together, we can leverage the collective strengths of the partners to better address health and social needs and create future opportunities for our community,” said Melanie.