Community
13 May, 2026
Time to get your heart checked
STAFF at Timboon and District Healthcare Service (TDHS) are extending the Heart Foundation’s Heart Week to Heart Month, encouraging community members to come in and get their heart health checked.
Heart Week is Australia’s national heart health awareness week, which is held in May each year, but TDHS staff decided to extend it to the entire month of May to increase awareness about heart health and encourage people to take positive steps to reduce their risk of heart attack and heart disease.
TDHS practice nurse Anne McMeel said the area surrounding Timboon was at particular risk due to an aging population.
“The age group we’re targeting is that late 40s, 50s, 60s age group so we can pick up if there’s any issues happening, and treat them or recognise them before they become major complications,” she said.
“This area is a high cardiovascular risk area, we have a high incidence of heart attacks and anything to do with hearts in the area.
“We are primary health, first level, and if we manage that with some specialist input, we keep them out of the tertiary, the hospital levels, which is much more expensive cost-wise and impacts on their lifestyles.”
Ms McMeel said an appointment would go over risk factors pertaining to heart health such as family history, diet, exercise and other lifestyle aspects.
“The things we’re looking for when doing a health check is looking at a family history, because often it runs in families, so a family history is really quite important,” she said.
“That’s looking at parents or grandparents who have had a heart attack, died from a heart attack, had hypertension, those sorts of things, from both sides.
“Then we look at their weight, diet, the amount of exercise they do, and prompting them to take preventative measures such as watching their weight or increase their exercise.
“If they are what we consider high risk we can do more investigations such as checking their heart rhythm with an ECG and if they need a bit more we can refer them on to do what we call a coronary calcium score.”
A coronary calcium score would involve a scan which looks at a patient’s coronary arteries and looking to see if there’s any blockage or narrowing of the coronary arteries.
Then the patient would be scored depending on how clear or blocked their coronary arteries are.
A high score would mean there’s some blockage and the patient could be referred to a heart specialist for further treatment.
Ms McMeel said she would encourage anyone within the targeted age range to make a heart health check appointment just to get the all clear and some peace of mind.
“I would say to anyone hesitant to make an appointment to please do it, especially if you’ve got the family history, because you mightn’t like going to the doctor, but if we pick something up or give you the all clear, it’s good, but if you leave it later, the bigger the complications and the more you’re going to see us long-term,” she said.
“It will involve a blood test just to check your cholesterol and it may involve us doing an ECG, which is the tracing of your heart rhythm which takes about five minutes, it’s non-invasive.
“It means sitting down and discussing whether you’re a smoker, checking your weight, checking what sort of diet you’ve got.
“There may be some suggestions which are appropriate to your lifestyle to improve it and that sort of thing.
“Most of us, as we age, the most important thing is our independence, and being able to do things for ourselves, so if we look after and tick the boxes and keep an eye on our health, we’re more likely to be independent and doing our own thing.”
A heart health check is a free appointment offered at Timboon Medical Clinic.
To check if you’re eligible or to book an appointment, call 5558 6088.