A Seventh-day Adventist chiropractor has been selected as one of Qantas’ “100 Most Inspiring Australians”.
This year (2020) marks the Australian airline’s 100-year anniversary. To celebrate this milestone, Qantas chose to recognize 100 influential Australians and feature their stories in the October issue of Travel Insider, their monthly in-flight magazine.
Michelangelo Wegner, owner of Elite Chiropractic in Randwick (Sydney, NSW), was selected because of the help he provided to essential workers and people in financial hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic. As of early September, he has provided more than 1100 free or reduced-cost treatments for people in these categories.
Mr Wegner, who is also a member of Woollahra Seventh-day Adventist Church, said he is “humbled and grateful” to have been selected.
“At the beginning of this, I thought, ‘What is our role as chiropractors? How are we going to support people?’ And I decided I was going to make myself accessible to anyone who wants it—frontline health workers, triple-zero responders, teachers,” he said in his interview with Travel Insider.
“Then I thought about everybody who has lost a job or had their hours shortened; they shouldn’t miss out. That’s why we’ve also got a pay-what-you-can policy.”
“It’s great to see Michelangelo generously using his healthcare skills to help people in pain at a time of uncertainty and need,” says his church pastor Daniel Przybylko.
In addition to providing free and reduced-cost treatments, Mr Wegner also offers free 15-minute consultations and sends free exercise videos to his clients.
Some of Mr Wegner’s clients have chosen to emulate his dream for paying it forward. When they go in for their own appointments with Mr Wegner, they pay for one or two sessions for somebody else.
“This has taught me that we really do try to pull together and that’s fantastic,” said Mr Wegner.
