In the years since that first week, Michelle has brought her other children Kayla and Noah to Manly for help. Since the kids reached school age Royal Far West has worked in consultation with her local school to ensure the support her children need continues when the family return to Portland in the State’s Central West, some 3 hours from Sydney.

Looking back Michelle admits she’s not sure what she would have done without help from Royal Far West and wasn’t even sure where her nearest paediatrician was.

Like many parents, Michelle didn’t know what to expect in the early days but, like so many mums and dads in rural and remote communities, she had a friend who had brought their child to Royal Far West.

During the first week Ebony was seen by Royal Far West’s multi-disciplinary assessment service. A team of over 40 specialist clinicians and the State’s only service focused providing specialist care to children from rural and remote communities were there to meet Ebony and her mum.

When Michelle’s son Noah was born 16 weeks premature, his healthcare needs saw her take him to a lot of different specialists who were in different locations. This often meant spending several days every week travelling the distance to and from various healthcare appointments.

Now Ebony, Kayla and Noah are each receiving the specialist care they need to address their complex health issues. For Noah and Kayla they’ve been able to regularly see our occupational therapists which has helped them improve their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. And because of so many clinicians under one roof the kids have been able to access everyone from a psychologist to dentist to physiotherapist.

Because Royal Far West values the privacy of our clients and their families, we have changed the names of the people in this case study.