General Clinic

General Clinic | Pharmacy | Ear Health | Rheumatic Heart Disease | Aged Care

Our clinic is funded predominantly by the Northern Territory Government through the Department of Health and Community Services.

In many ways, the clinic is the nucleus of the organisation, responsible for providing about 80 percent of the 17,000 episodes of care every year.

But its role goes far beyond this.

The clinic provides us with a means of accessing many of the Indigenous people in and around Katherine, and clinical staff take advantage of this by conducting thorough health checks on, and providing health education to, all clients visiting the clinic. In this way, opportunistic as it may be, health issues unrelated to the initial presentation are able to be identified. These can then be treated, and referred to specialist program areas as appropriate for follow up and management.

The clinic itself is staffed by Aboriginal Health Workers, one of which oversees its operation as the Clinic Coordinator. These staff provide the first point of contact for all clients of the clinic – they screen, take their history, and deliver health education. They also diagnose and treat according to their training and experience, ensuring that treatment guidelines such as those detailed in the CARPA Manual are adhered to, and act as interpreters and cultural guides as necessary.

Clients are seen by a doctor as appropriate.

Six consult rooms are available, and there is a fully equipped treatment room which can be utilised for emergency care and wound dressings.

The clinic does not operate an appointment system. Rather, clients are seen as they register with reception, although there is facility to “fast-track” clients as appropriate. Access to the clinic is improved by our transport service, which collects clients from anywhere within about a 30 kilometre radius of Katherine.

The diversity of conditions which clients present with, and the experience of the clinical staff we have available, makes the clinic a great place for clinicians in training such as Medical Students, Junior Doctors, GP Registrars, and Trainee Aboriginal Health Workers.