I support

We know that preventable chronic diseases have a huge impact on the health of Victorians. Health professionals are a trusted voice and can raise the benefits of preventive health with their patients, providing a real opportunity to affect the wider healthcare system. This campaign is a great initiative that supports our focus on prevention and early intervention, which is essential to improve the health of all Victorians.

- Dr Bruce Bolam, Chief Preventive Health Officer, Department of Health & Human Service

As health professionals we are highly trained to focus on illness and manage disease but less tuned towards promoting better health in our patients. Yet as this moving and powerful vignette shows, the consequences of too little, too late in preventative health are devastating and long lasting. It also shows that this course is not inevitable. We can and should at every encounter educate, encourage and empower our patients to change their behaviour.

- Dr Michelle Ananda-Rajah, General Physician, Alfred Health

As a society, we invest hundreds of millions of dollars in our health care system to treat people suffering from preventable diseases. We could spend a fraction of that amount to avoid – not just the health costs - but also the miseries of chronic disease experienced by the sufferers and their friends and family. Quit Victoria is fully behind any measure that encourages our health professionals to become actively involved in preventing ill health, not just treating it. The right word at the right time - it can and will save lives.

- Dr Sarah White, Director, Quit Victoria

Health professionals have a critical role to play in health promotion and prevention – they’re on the frontline and have the best opportunity to influence their patients. This campaign delivers such a powerful message – that every day, multiple times a day, there are choices to be made which can impact on health outcomes. Delivering the right word, at the right time, to influence those choices for good – that’s the goal. Health professionals are in a powerful position to influence the choices their patients make. Having those conversations can be difficult – but the right word, at the right time, can have life-changing consequences.

- Jerril Rechter, CEO, VicHealth