1. 6 Wednesday December 9, 2015 NEWS
JOE VESCIO
General Manager,General Manager,
The last Ordinary Council meeting for the year
will be held at 2pm, Tuesday, 15 December at
the Rydges Horizons Resort in Jindabyne.
Generally, Council meetings are held in
Berridale, however for a number of years now
Council has been holding the November
Ordinary Council meeting in Adaminaby and
the May and December Council meetings in
Jindabyne. This gives the community in these
areas a better opportunity to either attend a
meeting or to become involved by speaking in
the Public Forum section.
Each month there are a large variety of reports
presented to Council for determination and as
you look back over a year you can definitely see
that council provides an extensive amount of
services and that it has many different areas of
responsibility.
As an example, a development application for
the HealthOne project was presented to Coun-
cil in November. This report was seeking an
approval for a Community Health facility to be
co-located at the Snowy River Health Centre in
Jindabyne. The report detailed that the devel-
opment is to be constructed within the
Thredbo Terrace Car Park and that the main
body of the building would be constructed at
the same level as Thredbo Terrace with an air
bridge connecting the new building to the
existing Health Centre. Due to the nature of the
proposal and as it is on Council land, the
application was assessed externally and a
report was prepared by an independent town
planner which was also attached to the report.
Council resolved to approve the report subject
to conditions. If you would like further informa-
tion about this development or other reports
presented to Council, they can be viewed by
visiting the Council Meetings section on our
website.
In 2016, Council meetings will resume in Febru-
ary on the second and fourth Tuesday of each
month.
COOMA
IS OPEN FOR YOU ON
BOXING DAY &
NEW YEARS DAY
For all your Festive needs
come in & see Nathan,
Coles Store Manager,
Centennial Plaza CoomaCC a
Merry Christmas!
Has your photo appeared
in The Monaro Post?
Call our Sales Team to
order your copy today!
6452 0313
Kalten battling very rare disease
Nick Chapman
Three-year-old Kalten Nelson from Cooma
has been diagnosed with MPS IVA, also
known as Morquio Syndrome.
Morquio Syndrome is an extremely rare
disease which will affect Kalten’s physical
development, while mentally he remains a
normal, happy kid.
Kalten, who has been experiencing
difficulties since birth, has two older siblings
so his mother, Tracey, noticed there was
something different about his physical
development from an early age.
“I realised something was wrong when
he was born. He’s my third, I’ve got four
kids. He was in quite a foetal position, quite
clenched,” she said.
Kalten’s health concerns led his mother
to a number of visits to the doctor before
he was officially diagnosed with Morquio
Syndrome earlier this year.
Tracey was in Brisbane getting radiation
treatment for breast cancer, which she
is officially clear from, when she was
contacted by the paediatrician in Canberra.
They were then referred to a doctor in
Brisbane who came up with the diagnosis.
Since then, Tracey makes regular trips to
Sydney with her son for checkups, but at
this stage no treatment is available.
As Kalten’s symptoms progress, the
family is hopeful that they will be able to
gain access to a treatment that is currently
undergoing trials in Australia.
The use of Enzyme Replacement
Therapy has just been passed in England
and is in an experimental phase
here.
Unfortunately Kalten missed
the cut off date for the trial, but
the Nelsons are working with
Westmead towards gaining him
access to the potentially life
changing treatment, which has
been very beneficial to other
patients
“Everyone I’ve spoken to about
ERT has been really positive
about it. It has helped them
grow and helped things that are
progressing fast slow right down,’
Tracey said.
“There’s another family in
Taralga and their little boy is on
the trial with very good results.
Their son has grown 6cm in a
year; everything has gotten better
rather than worse.”
At this stage the treatment
would only be available in Sydney
and would require weekly trips,
but the family is optimistic about
gaining access closer to home
and are prepared to do what it takes in the
mean time.
“I’d like it to be in Canberra but I’m
happy to travel to Sydney for a year and
then it comes to Canberra,” Tracey said.
Until treatment can become available
there are limited options for Kalten.
These include some physiotherapy and
hydrotherapy and his mother incorporates
exercises in to games for her son.
Although his physical condition may
deteriorate in the future, at this stage Kalten
is enjoying being a normal kid and playing
with his siblings.
“Other than that he’s just a normal kid
at the moment, his personality for having
a condition is awesome. He wants to be
independent he wants to do things.
“At the moment they’ve given us
exercises to do with him. I just do exercises
that are like games for him.”
The Cooma Fire Brigade has
the privilege of chauffeuring a
very special guest around town
over the next few weeks.
Santa has requested that the
brigade provide their finest red
fire truck to take him around
to the local preschools so that
he can visit the children of the
area handing out presents
and finding out who has been
naughty or nice.
Among these visits, the
brigade has been kept busy
over the weekend.
On Saturday
the Cooma Fire
Brigade and Rural
Fire Services
attended a grass
fire started by
a slasher on
Middle Flat Road.
Burning a few
acres of country,
the fire was
quickly contained
by the teams.
The Cooma Brigade also
attended a bin that was set
alight at 10pm on Saturday
night near the main bridge in
Sharp Street, Cooma.
Rural Fire Services completed
their cadet program at St
Patrick’s School in Cooma last
week, with 20 enthusiastic
students participating.
The program is also running
out at Jindabyne Central School
and will be completed this
Friday.
Fire brigade on annual Santa duty