President’s Message

Hello Colleagues,

I firstly want to acknowledge our New Zealand colleagues who have been affected by flooding that started back in January and Cyclone Gabrielle that hit the North Island in late February. The health impacts of these events have been vast, and some of you have no doubt been on the front-line. through your work. I send my thoughts and hope your families have remained safe in these very challenging times.

This year will see a major change for ANZSGM at a governance level where we plan to transition from an incorporated association to a company limited by guarantee. Council has overseen this process since it was first proposed back in 2021. I encourage you to read this article to get a better understanding (without the legalese!) of what this proposal is for and what the transition will mean for members.

The Annual Scientific Meeting is fast approaching and I look forward to seeing many of you in Brisbane in May. It has been three years since we have had a wholly face-to-face meeting and I know connecting with our members in-person after so long will be a wonderful experience. I’m very excited about our first Perioperative SIG workshop  – registrations have now closed thanks to an outstanding response (over 180 registrations!), boding well for any SIG workshops in the future. The Advanced Trainee Weekend is sure to be another popular event.  

Speaking of SIGs we hope to get the ball rolling this year on the “Out of Hospital Care” SIG which will focus on outreach services to residential care, community care of older people including Geriatricians role in private practice. We also plan to start a Dementia SIG. Now more than ever it important that we highlight the importance of Geriatric Medicine services in the care of people living with dementia. Have a look at the Dementia in Australia Report 2022 by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare which among other things provides some data about our role in caring for people with dementia. Separate to this report there is quite correctly a lot of discussions about developing more services and support for people with dementia. We have an important role to play in making sure this does not result in fragmentation of care and we need to “talk up” the benefits of providing as much of the assessment, diagnosis and managements plans under the one umbrella in collaboration with primary care and aged care community and residential care services.

So far this year we will continue to find ways we can effectively influence reform across the regional and national levels of government in both Australia and New Zealand.. In early March the Society was invited with peer organisations to be part of a roundtable discussion to inform the work of the Interim Inspector-General and Inspector-General of Aged Care Ian Yates, whose remit is in part to look at the recommendations of the Royal Commission. These discussions have confirmed to me that our core message remains around our outreach teams – we as geriatricians are ideally placed to provide significant leadership to outreach teams and there are some excellent examples of well resourced, multidisciplinary teams across the country and we must continue to advocate for their support.

Finally want to acknowledge two of our members Sue Kurrle and Eddy Strivens who back in January were awarded an Office of the Order of Australia and a Member of the Order of Australia respectively. Both Eddy and Sue have made outstanding contributions to geriatric medicine (read more here) and have both somehow managed to find time to play prominent roles in the Society over the years. My warmest congratulations to you both.

Best Wishes

Vasi Naganathan