Mouth mapping at the Yea Saleyards

YEA and District Memorial Hospital (YDMH) is set to improve health services at the Yea Saleyards, thanks to a new partnership with the Rotary Club of Yea.

For a couple of years now, YDMH has run a monthly health clinic at the saleyards, but staff have been forced to work out of temporary and unsuitable spaces, including the cafeteria area or even a borrowed council library bus. These limitations have restricted both the quality and the growth of services.

To address this, YDMH and Rotary Yea successfully applied for an Elders Community Giving grant, securing $20,000 in funding. The funds will go towards purchasing and installing a relocatable building at the saleyards, creating a dedicated space for health checks and clinics.

In addition, Rotary is supporting the hospital in purchasing new oral cancer screening technology for YDMH’s innovative ‘mouth mapping’ program.

This collaboration marks a significant step in supporting the health and wellbeing of the local community, with a strong focus on those working in agriculture.

Dr Jennifer Keast, the Rural Health Academic Network (RHAN) co-ordinator at YDMH, was interviewed about mouth mapping and the opportunity provided by these developments.

“Mouth mapping is a fairly new initiative and doesn’t differ that much from mole mapping of our skin. What people probably don’t realise is that we have skin on the inside of our mouths as well as on the outside of our bodies.

That skin is just as susceptible to developing cancer lesions as our external skin,” Dr Keast said.

“But often they’re not tested early because we don’t tend to look inside our mouths, and if we are not going to the dentist very often, then these lesions can develop and be picked up quite late. If they are picked up late, they have a very high chance of poor outcome.”

Running a mouth mapping program through YDMH to monitor for oral cancer in the local….

Image: Dr Tami Yap, Oral Medicine Specialist, Yea nurses Sally Belford and Shona Miljkovic and simulated patient Barry Phillips.