She now has a machine that pumps oxygen into her body while she sleeps.
Within a week of seeing Dr Rogers, a sleep machine test confirmed she had sleep apnoea and revealed she was waking up 34 times an hour and getting four and a half hours sleep a night.
She had also been under-eating for 10 years in a desperate battle to stop gaining weight, which meant she wasn’t getting enough nutrition to replenish her body, which was also sapping her energy levels. In fact sleep apnoea can cause havoc with hormones and lead to weight gain because the patient simply does not have enough energy to function properly, let alone exercise. Ms McGough had been told previously she had small nasal passages which may be affecting her sleep, but she was never told the consequences of what might happen if left untreated. “It’s been a long battle and I’ve been to lots of GPs who didn’t really listen to me and assumed I must be binge eating in secret.” GP clinic Osana Narrabeen takes clients on outings to the supermarket to teach them healthy shopping habits and on walks to Narrabeen Beach, above. “It took a caring doctor to drill deeper and find out why I had a weight problem,” Ms McGough said. After years of going to GPs and feeling frustrated because they only asked her, ‘What do you need?’, she said it was amazing to have a GP who was keen to listen to her. Her first consultation with Dr Caroline Rogers was an hour and a half long.ĭuring that appointment Dr Rogers suspected Ms McGough might be suffering from sleep apnoea, a serious disorder where people stop breathing repeatedly during their sleep, sometimes hundreds of times. Ms McGough even has her own health assistant, whose job it is to arrange all her health appointments both at the clinic and elsewhere if needed.ĭr Caroline Rogers used the bike if does home visits near the Narrabeen clinic on Pittwater Rd. She also gets free access to in-house specialists including a psychologist and physiotherapist.
For an annual membership fee of $150 she can see her GP for as long as she wants, as frequently as she wants. She is still on her journey and has another 40 kilos to shed, but said she feels like a different person. Ms McGough, 47, of Avalon, can’t praise it enough - it’s changed her life. Patient Annette McGough says the GP surgery has changed her life. Here patients can go on group trips to the supermarket to learn healthy shopping habits, attend free weekly cookery lessons with in-house dietician Lisa Mesiti, enjoy beach walks and even go to meditation classes. That’s because she is a guinea pig, along with 450 other northern beaches patients, who have signed up to a revolutionary new doctor’s surgery, Osana Narrabeen, where doctors get paid bonuses for keeping people well. Sometimes she might even pop in for a cup of tea. “Tax agent Annette McGough isn’t sick, but she goes to her GP surgery at least once a week, if not twice.
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