Health care is closer to home for Romsey residents.
A community health centre is operating on part of the former Romsey Primary School site and surrounding parklands have been developed in the first stage of transforming the land.
Cobaw Community Health Service and the Greater Romsey All-Abilities Park group have worked with Macedon Ranges council on the nature-based health and wellbeing park.
Cobaw is offering early childhood, youth, families, adults, aged and disability services as well as providing a range of NDIS services for children and adults.
Cobaw chief executive Margaret McDonald said the centre, located in the 150-year-old school building, would benefit local residents, who would no longer have to travel to Woodend and Kyneton for services such as child and adolescent support, counselling and allied health services.
“Delivering local place-based services to the east of the shire has been a long-held vision of the Cobaw board and staff,” Ms McDonald
said. “We are excited to be able to bring the health and wellbeing services we currently deliver at Woodend and Kyneton to Romsey and the surrounding communities, allowing residents the opportunity to receive high-quality services without having to travel.
“The renovation and expansion of the building is now complete, along with the first stage of the Ecotherapy Park.”
The Romsey Ecotherapy Park, designed to provide sensory therapies through engagement with nature, was a community-led initiative aimed at building an accessible passive recreation space for locals and visitors, Ms McDonald said.
The former Romsey Primary School site works were funded by the federal government, the state Department of Health and Human Services, Macedon Ranges council and Cobaw Community Health Services.
Ms McDonald said that more spaces within the park would be completed as more funding was secured.
More information: mrsc.vic.gov.au/old-Romsey-school
