Former city-based paediatric therapist loving life in regional NSW

With long waitlists and a dire shortage of paediatric services in regional NSW, Ms Desmidt was happily welcomed into the Southern Highlands community a year ago.

Working for SEED Paediatric Services in Bowral, she is among the five per cent of paediatricians nationally working in a regional area.

"I continue to learn about the shortage and the waitlists in the Southern Highlands region," she said.

"We have other teams in Orange and Dubbo who are servicing their own regions but they have the same issues as well."

An OT for 10 years, before taking the job at SEED, Ms Desmidt worked for Royal Far West - a national charity dedicated to connecting rural children with appropriate health care.

"That's really where I learnt about the statewide shortage of services like access to paediatricians and assessments and intervention but also allied health," she said.

As a paediatric OT Ms Desmidt works with children to help them perform their everyday activities, centred on play and learning. This could be helping to achieve developmental milestones such as fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

Part of her work is collaborating amongst a small group of local clinicians.

"I see a lot of families needing developmental assessments from paediatricians and the waitlist is about 18 months," Ms Desmidt said.

"For a lot of these families we know that early intervention and assessment is key in their journey and because of the waitlist they're not able to access these services that are so crucial.

"I've seen some very desperate, distressed families because of the shortages of paediatricians in the area but also the allied heath services as well."

One of the main issues is attracting paediatricians to work in regional NSW. SEED is looking for more staff in Bowral to ease the load on Ms Desmidt - the sole paediatric OT.

"Our practice SEED is actively trying to recruit because we don't want waitlists," she said. "Rural and remote living has so many perks and positives as a lifestyle," she said.

With raising a family in mind, Ms Desmidt said she was very happy with her move to a quieter town.

"The one thing I have found a huge difference in is the sense of community in the smaller parts of NSW. It's a deep rooted sense of community in these areas," she said.

Despite only opening as a new service in Bowral in late 2023, Ms Desmidt said the SEED books were almost full.

"That's going to become a reality very soon, in weeks, because I think being in small communities the power of the word of mouth (is strong)," she said.

"Families share their experiences and try and support each other and that's very much linking in with who their current support teams are.

"I think it won't be long until we're in exactly the same position as other (paediatric) services."

To help create a longer term solution in western NSW, Royal Far West is seeking funding for a three-year pilot to expand their developmental assessment and treatment service based in Manly with two new rural based paediatric assessment clinics in Wagga and Dubbo.