The Collie River Valley Medical Centre has welcomed a new dietitian to the clinic, with Mary-Ellen Hanratty in town to provide dietary advice three days a week.
Ms Hanratty said there was a lack of access to dietitians in regional communities and she was hopeful to help Collie residents with their dietary issues.
“Dietitians in the area are often booked out and they’re more hospital dietitians… the only way to see an out-patient dietitian was to go to Perth, and that’s not always possible,” she said.
“I want to help the people of Collie first and foremost, because if I’m not here then who’s going to give them that service?”
Ms Hanratty said dietitians were ‘under-valued’ and were helpful to people managing serious illnesses.
“When someone is a newly-diagnosed diabetic, early management of the condition is important … and diet plays a big role in that,” she said.
She also said that many health problems seen within the community could be improved by addressing nutritional deficiencies in your diet.
Ms Hanratty said her major goal was to change the way people think about the field.
“We’re not the diet police,” she said.
“There’s really been a shift in how dietitians practice in recent years, from telling people what not to eat to instead giving them ideas on how to have a positive relationship with food.
“No one likes counting calories and that’s not what we do.”
Ms Hanratty is in Collie from Wednesday to Friday each week.
