The emerging use of medical cannabis in Australia will headline the upcoming inaugural Wide Bay Health Symposium, Thinking innovatively in collaborative health care practice.
Keynote speaker for the symposium, Medifarm's founding director, Adam Benjamin, will discuss the organisation’s plan to successfully cultivate and produce medical cannabis for Australian patients.
Medical cannabis has been legal to cultivate and manufacture in Australia under federal licence since October 2016 and both GPs and specialists can now prescribe the medicine (oil, capsules, patches and flowers for vaping) for suitable patients.
As Australia’s first licensed medical cannabis farm and supplier, Medifarm has completed its first harvest and are building reserves to provide continuity of care once the product is available.
It's expected Australian patients will have access to the products at pharmacies by October this year.
Mr Benjamin first became invested in the idea of medical cannabis after hearing about the lengths some patients were having to go to for pain relief.
“In 2014 a beautiful Sunshine Coast boy passed away from terminal cancer. He was eight years old and his upstanding, law-abiding parents sourced medical cannabis but through the black market which helped him towards the end of his life,” Mr Benjamin said.
“When I heard this story, I knew that once the laws permitted in Australia, we needed to help Australian patients access the best quality medical cannabis through legal and quality medical channels, and that’s why we created Medifarm.
“If we look back to 1937 and the history books, prior to 1937 medical cannabis was the number one prescription medicine across all of Europe and all of America, and doctors were treating hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people.
“It is also already improving the lives of millions of people around the world and now it is time to do so with significant numbers of Australians. We have a duty of care to do the best to help improve those people’s lives.”
Through its exclusive IP partnership with Tikun Olam (Israel), the global pioneers in cannabinoid medicine, Medifarm is cultivating exclusive genetics that are bred for specific medical conditions such as pain, epilepsy, cancer care, PTSD, autism and palliative care, among the many other medical conditions.
These exclusively held genetics are grown locally on the Sunshine Coast but are supported by international clinical trials and the world’s largest database of patient treatments.
Mr Benjamin believes Medifarm will give Australians immediate access to proven treatments based on well over a decade of the leading agricultural and clinical research in cannabinoid medicine.
The Wide Bay Health Symposium is being coordinated by CQUniversity’s Wide Bay and Burnett region and the CQU Noosa Institute, in collaboration with Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service.
Symposium to showcase innovation
The symposium will be an opportunity to showcase and discuss innovative practices, technology and research with industry peers and leaders in the health care industry.
CQUniversity Associate Vice-Chancellor for the Bundaberg Region, Luke Sinclair, said the Symposium was a first of its kind for the University but was also fitting as the University was a driver in both health care innovation and industry research collaboration.
“We are very excited about bringing together some of the best ideas in collaborative health care practice in Australia and providing a platform for the industry to explore new ways to work together.”
Other keynote speakers for the Symposium include Professor Desley Hegney, who will speak about resilience for health practitioners, and Dr Sarah Jay who will present research on the effects of sleeplessness on safety and shift workers.
Other speakers include Kathy McKenzie from Fire-up Coaching, with an interactive and engaging educational session on ‘conversational intelligence’ and CQUniversity’s Associate Professor Michael Cowling who will provide an opportunity for hands-on experiences using the immersive technologies of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).
Another highly anticipated speaker will be CQUniversity’s Professor Kerry Reid-Searl who will present an entertaining and enlightening keynote on her internationally renowned and award-winning simulation technology Mask-Ed.
The symposium will be held from from 18-19 September 2019 in Bundaberg.
For further details about the symposium visit the website and search for Wide Bay Health Symposium.
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