Our Organisation
We are a fully accredited Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation providing clinical, preventative and emergency health services across the remote western region of Katherine in the Northern Territory.
We aim to improve the health and wellbeing of all people in the Katherine West region.
We provide culturally secure primary health care and are a voice for our communities in all matters affecting our health.
We are funded by Australian and Northern Territory Government health care grants to deliver comprehensive, culturally appropriate primary health care services to all people across the Katherine West region.
Our History
The Katherine West Health Board emerged from the Coordinated Care Trial tests that took place across Australia in the mid-to-late 1990s. The trials aimed to address the way that chronically ill people were being treated in Australia’s healthcare system and allow localities to experiment alternative ways to deliver health services that better accommodated their population’s needs. Katherine West was one of four trials from the national program specifically working to improve outcomes for Aboriginal people.
Health services to communities in the Katherine West region improved significantly over the trial, including:
- The set-up of community-based health clinics.
- The residential placement of General Practitioners on communities for the first time.
- The establishment of a mobile health service to service remote bushland and outstations.
- An increase in Aboriginal health workers being trained and employed as health professionals in the region.
Learn more about the Coordinated Care Trial tests at the Parliament of Australia website.
Our Logo
The boomerang represents sickness. The shield represents the Health Centres. The shield stands protective against sickness as one.
Our logo was developed by Senior Aboriginal Health Worker Rob Roy Japarta of Kalkaringi in 1998.
The name of Jirntangku Miyrta ‘One Shield for All’ symbolises the Katherine West Health Board charter to reflect that the one shield is representative of all people and language groups in the Katherine West region.
Our Dream
● All people of the region have long, healthy and happy lives.
● Excellent health services under community control.
● All people working together to care for our health.