Rabobank brings Heart of Australia to Charters Towers

Rabobank’s Rabo Community Fund has partnered with Heart of Australia on the mobile medical program’s mission to deliver specialist healthcare services to rural and remote communities.

To align with the specialist agribusiness bank’s 30-year anniversary celebrations in north Queensland, Heart of Australia’s Heart Truck will be offering free basic heart health checks looking at blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels in Charters Towers on Tuesday 12 May.

Rabobank community engagement manager Skye Ward said Heart of Australia’s mission aligns well with one of the Rabo Community Fund’s key aims to support rural wellbeing initiatives.

“The Rabo Community Fund is focused on supporting meaningful grassroots initiatives that help build industry capacity, champion health and wellbeing and strengthen the rural-urban connection,” Ms Ward said.

“And the critical work undertaken by Heart of Australia provides access to specialist services and testing in rural, remote and First Nations communities where access to healthcare is often limited with the tyranny of distance.”

Since the Rabo Community Fund first partnered with Heart of Australia in 2022, it has helped provide support for 465 health checks in rural and regional communities, including 100 at the FNQ Field Days at Mareeba. Founded in 2014, Heart of Australia has seen over 20,000 patients, regularly serving over 40 communities and contributing to saving 900 lives. 

Seven fit-for-purpose Heart Trucks – custom-designed health clinics-on-wheels – have saved patients more than 54 million kilometres of travel for specialist appointments.

Heart of Australia founder and cardiologist Dr Rolf Gomes said, “over the past few years, we’ve been proud to work alongside Rabobank to deliver preventative health services to rural communities where there are greater barriers in place to accessing medical care”.

“Our collaboration is a practical example of what’s possible when organisations work together to make essential health services easier to reach for country Australians,” he said.

Rabo Community Fund

With a dedicated pool of funding for grassroots initiatives, the Rabo Community Fund supports meaningful community projects.

Since its launch in 2021, the fund has invested more than $4 million in national and local initiatives to help address key agribusiness and community challenges.

“As a global cooperative, founded by farmers, Rabobank has a long history of community engagement and now, thanks to our Rabo Community Fund, we can make an even bigger impact in the communities where our clients live,” Ms Ward said.

“From supporting health checks in remote areas to providing agri-educational resources for schools and hosting succession planning and financial skills workshops for over 770 farmers, our impact has been far-reaching,” she said.

Heart Truck details:

A walk-in-service is open to anyone in the Charters Towers community.

Date:               Tuesday 12 May 2026

Times:             11.30am to 5pm

Location:         Charters Towers Showgrounds, 2-8 Show Street, Charters Towers

The free preventative health checks – taking approximately 15 minutes each – involve a blood pressure measurement and a blood test for a lipid profile which will measure glucose and cholesterol levels. The tests help determine how the heart is functioning.