November 2003

Turn up your radio

Western Health has formed an alliance with community radio station STEREO 974.

Western Health is the major health provider in the west of Melbourne and incorporates Western, Sunshine and Williamstown hospitals, DASWest Drug and Alcohol Service and nursing homes Reg Geary in Melton and Hazeldean in Williamstown.

STEREO 974 has been broadcasting in the west for the past 25 years and has a current listener base of 250,000 per week.

Catering for the local community, STEREO 974 produces programs in English, Maltese, Greek, Croatian, Turkish, Spanish, Serbian and Vietnamese.

Western Health Board Chair Rennis Witham said the alliance would provide Western Health with an opportunity to better reach the west’s culturally and linguistically diverse community.

‘We will be utilising STEREO 974’s varied programs as an avenue to communicate information to our community about the services provided by Western Health,’ Ms Witham said.

‘STEREO 974 will begin by airing extracts from our recently distributed Quality of Care report with the help of bilingual Western Health staff and has agreed to continue helping us communicate other information of interest to the community.’

As part of the alliance, all patient television sets at Western Hospital are now tuned into STEREO 974.

Community members will soon be able to send get-well messages to family members who are in Western Health hospitals and nursing homes.