February 26, 2025The Virtual Sexual Health Collaborative Consult service is addressing a gap in sexual healthcare access for LGBTIQA+ individuals.
The service, which is part of Northern Health’s Victorian Virtual Specialist Consults (VVSC), provides free, virtual video consultations to LGBTIQA+ individuals living in regional areas. A targeted outreach clinic of the VVSC, the sexual health clinic partnered with the Sunraysia Community Health Service Nurse Practitioner candidate offering specialist expertise and mentorship through video collab-consults.
Launching in July 2023 to fill the void left by a departing community GP, the innovative collaboration merges the expert input of a metropolitan-based sexual health physician with the hands-on support of a local healthcare provider. In doing do, specialist care can be provided in a safe and inclusive manner to a marginalised community in a regional setting, without needing to travel to metropolitan Melbourne.
Dr Vinita Rane, Sexual Health and General Medicine Physician, said the barriers of seeking care in a metropolitan centre, including time and travel costs and fear of discrimination, have shown to negatively impact health-seeking behaviour amongst LGBTIQA+ individuals.
“While all LGBTIQA+ people are often challenged by stigma and discrimination, research tells us very clearly that LGBTIQA+ people living in rural or regional areas experience even further disadvantage,” she said.
Dr Joanna Lawrence, VVSC Director, said one of the key strengths of the collab-consult was to support local healthcare providers to build their own capacity and independence whilst ensuring every patient receives expert-informed care.
“Through this model, we are truly providing patient-centred care. The trust and holistic care provided by the community clinician is augmented by the expert input of our specialists. This means patients can receive the very best evidence-informed care across the spectrum of specialities without having to leave their own community, provided by a local healthcare provider they know and trust.”
Dr Rane said the combination of trust and expertise was even more valuable to marginalised communities.
“Without this initiative, these patients would have faced a significant burden to access healthcare, or gone without critical treatment, therefore increasing the risk of further disease transmission amongst the community and poorer healthcare outcomes for the individual,” she said.
Yasmin Birnie, who is now a fully qualified nurse practitioner, has transitioned to practicing independently but can continue to book into Dr Rane’s clinic when she needs expert advice. Meanwhile, Dr Rane will now use the success of this initiative as a blueprint to extend similar services to other regional centres.
“By championing healthcare equity and addressing disparities, many patients have received specialised sexual health services closer to home, underscoring the immediate impact of the initiative and the pressing need for such inclusive care,” says Dr Rane.
The Virtual Sexual Health Collaborative Consults was a finalist in last year’s Victorian Public Healthcare Awards, under the category ‘Excellence in Supporting LGBTIQA+ Victorians’.
VVSC, also a finalist in last year’s Victorian Public Healthcare Awards under the category ‘Care Closer to Home’, offers similar collab-consult services across over 30 different specialties partnering with primary healthcare clinicians across the state to extend timely access to specialist care.
“We believe strongly that this collaboration between hospital and non-hospital specialists helps overcome fragmentation in care and enables more patients to receive expert-informed care, provided by their trusted clinician, closer to home,” said Dr Lawrence.
For more information, please visit: https://vvsc.org.au/
Featured image: Yasmin Birnie.
