FixSIBO

Our people

Jasmine Chilcott

Founder

Jasmine decided to pay it forward and found FixSIBO after a painful 3 year personal journey in search of a diagnosis and treatment for the misunderstood, misdiagnosed and mistreated condition that is SIBO.

 In early 2017, after being hospitalised with severe food poisoning, Jasmine seemingly recovered, but then slowly but surely developed digestive issues. Over the next year she lost her hair, developed skin conditions she’d never experienced, lived in daily pain, developed food and histamine intolerances, became vitamin deficient and, not entirely surprisingly, became profoundly miserable. 

Despite top-level insurance, excellent access to medical care, and an extensive array of tests, no doctors seemed able to provide an answer.

She tried every gut supplement she could find and took multiple overpriced online intolerance tests.

She still had no answers, and nothing had helped. 

In 2021, some 3 years after it all began, her SIBO was diagnosed via a breath test after she finally found a doctor who knew about the condition. He explained most doctors just call it IBS, advise a low FODMAP diet and consider the case closed.

Jasmine realised, if she had this much medical privilege and still wasn’t effectively treated for three years, many others must be suffering far longer.

FixSIBO was created with the simple goal of providing people with a research and community platform that could empower them to have a faster recovery to good gut health.

Dr James Freeman

Co-Founder/
Chief Medical Executive

Dr James Freeman is a family physician who comes from a long line of doctors and has been practising medicine for over 2 decades.

He helped pioneer Telemedicine in Australia and has a special interest in underserved populations.

He has run medical trials, presented research at most of the world’s major gastroenterology conferences and has a number of peer reviewed articles to his credit.

He combines this international medical reputation with high level technical and engineering skills. His success working as a doctor, a start-up entrepreneur and in med/tech business around the world, ideally positions him to really help those in the emerging area of SIBO.

Dr John Freeman

Medical Advisor

Dr John Freeman is a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and developed intensive care and haemodialysis in his early career at the Royal Hobart hospital. He has been awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study renal disease in the United States, was a board member of the College of Physicians and was awarded the John Sands medal by the college. He has published many papers in peer reviewed journals.

Dr John Freeman is a consultant physician with over 50 years of experience, including training in Queen Square London and going on to set up the Intensive Care Unit, the Coronary Care Unit and the Renal Unit at the Royal Hobart Hospital back in the days when these things needed to be invented on the fly.

Over his career he has seen ideas come in and out of fashion, sometimes more than once. “In 1944, while Dr. Burwell was Dean, women entered Harvard Medical School for the first time on an equal basis with men. In an address to students at the Medical School, he said, ‘Half of what we are going to teach you is wrong, and half of it is right. Our problem is that we don’t know which half is which.’

He then went on to say “My reason for mentioning that is firstly there is a lot about medicine we do not understand, and the gut brain axis is definitely one of those, and secondly, the historically male dominated nature of my profession has tended to under investigate what may loosely be described as women’s issues. With the catch all diagnosis irritable bowel syndrome impacting far more women than men I think our profession has been a little derelict in investigating it”.

Hazel Heal

Chief Operating Officer

Hazel Heal is based in New Zealand. She graduated law and was admitted to the Bar in 2019. In 2021, she delivered a personal dream charitable health project; fundraising and directing Cure a Country Niue, the first in the world country viral hepatitis elimination program to screen its population.

She has gained national and international prominence as a health advocate. This advocacy has resulted in Hazel being ministerially appointed as a Consumer Advisor to Pharmac, a division of the Ministry of Health.

She has other government advisor roles in health on public awareness and has co-authored a paper with the World Health Organisation.

Hazel’s work for others has been recognised, being made an Edmund Hillary Fellow in 2019, a global community of leaders and change makers.