After being without continence services for sometime, Stawell Regional Health is investing more to help residents get treated in the region.
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In the past few years, continence treatment services have been limited in Stawell, but with the appointment of a new staff member and the chase for more funds, Stawell Regional Health is looking to expand this area.
Stawell Regional Health primary care team leader, and trained continency physiotherapist, Julia Boatman, said issues with continence should not be ignored by residents.
"We are trying to spread the word to the community that the services has resumed and that we are providing the most up to date information and equipment," she said.
"We want people to know we are here for all their issues, especially the ones they have been sweeping under the rug.
"We want people to know that we can help them fix these issues and they are not a normal thing to have to deal with."
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Ms Boatman grew up in the Crowlands area and she said she was glad to be back in Stawell and helping the community.
"I always wanted to come back and work in a rural area and a really big passion of mine is rural health and so mixing them together brings me here," she said.
"I was working at the continence clinic in Ballarat and now I have been with Stawell Regional Health for three months, started part time and has now moved into fulltime."
Ms Boatman said her work was mostly focussed on treating issues people can believe are normal or not worth fixing.
In Australia urinary incontinence (poor bladder control) is a common condition affecting a third of women, one in 10 men and one in five children in Australia.
Faecal incontinence (poor bowel control) is also more common than people think - affecting approximately one in 20 Australians.
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For Ms Boatman, her focus areas include bladder and bowel disfunction, pelvic pain or pain with sexual intercourse and using physiotherapy to strengthen the muscles in that part of the body.
"We don't want people to live like that, it is not a nice way to live and it doesn't have to be that way," she said.
"Things that keep our waste in are muscles and we have control of them, so it does seem a bit strange for a physiotherapist to be involved with continence, but our work is for the therapy for those muscles specifically."
While the Stawell Regional Health continence service is in its early stages of redevelopment, Ms Boatman was supported by the Ballarat Health Services one day a week.
The Stawell Regional Health are also chasing funding to hire a continence nurse and invest in more continence treatment equipment.
"Before this people have had to go to Ararat, or most would have to go to Horsham or Ballarat," Ms Boatman said.
"It is nice that we have something local to service the local people.
"We are here to help people with these issues, you don't have to live like that."
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