Our Service

About 25% of the Katherine population is Indigenous, and like Indigenous people throughout Australia, their level of health is far below that of the non-Indigenous population.

There are many reasons for this, including poverty and unemployment, poor education, sub-standard housing, feelings of hopelessness, malnutrition, and lifestyle choices involving substance misuse and excessive alcohol consumption.

Our service tries to address these; directly, through the provision of comprehensive primary health care, and indirectly, by advocating for change.

With secure funding from various sources, we are able to target conditions which are prevalent amongst our Indigenous people: rheumatic heart disease, diabetes, sexually transmitted diseases, middle ear infections, diabetic retinopathy, renal disease, low birth weight, and so on.

Broadly, we seek to do this through prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and management.

There is an increasing emphasis on activities pertaining to health promotion and education as we attempt to ensure that people understand the impact on their health of the lifestyle choices they make, and a heavy reliance on Patient Information Recall Systems to ensure clients receive follow-up care as part of effective client management. Health checks, conducted on children and adults, are also an integral part of our service, enabling us to identify risk factors prior to the development of degenerative health condition(s).

Another important aspect of our service is access, which is enhanced by the provision of a transport service, collecting Indigenous people from within about 30 kilometers of the township.

In total, we have around 3,000 regular Indigenous clients.

We also service Indigenous people visiting the town, and this increases our number of Indigenous clients by about 5,000. These clients have access to their own health services within their home communities, and we manage their health on a temporary basis, passing relevant information back to their community health service.