Our Services

We provide culturally appropriate, accessible and responsive health care to Katherine West communities. We offer general health services, including wellbeing checks, health screening, early intervention, pain and injury treatment and management.

Our maternal health service covers all aspects of maternal health including:

• Reproductive and sexual health
• Antenatal care (pre-birth) to support an expectant mother through pregnancy and identify any potential problems or complications
• Postnatal care to meet the needs of mother and baby following childbirth
• Parent education
• Early childhood health

Our Women and Maternal Health Coordinators work closely with a wider team of health professionals to support and care for women during pregnancy and on return to community until the child is 6 weeks old. Our home visiting program, Strong Beginnings for Strong Families works closely with pregnant clients and new parents to ensure they receive ongoing support to grow healthy babies.

Our Child Health service supports infants and children up to 15 years of age and covers all aspects of child health including:

• Regular wellbeing checks
• Immunisations
• Development assessments
• Chronic illness support

Our sexual health and primary health care professionals work together to increase awareness about safe sex practices, prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections, and the diagnosis, treatment and management of outbreaks. There is a strong focus on surveillance, screening, follow up and contact tracing.

Chronic diseases diagnosed in our region include diabetes, heart and kidney disease.

Our Chronic Disease Team works with remote health professionals to prevent, detect and manage chronic disease and improve the quality of life and life expectancy of our clients.

Our allied health professionals also work closely with clients to increase knowledge and self-management capacity.

We additionally provide support to clients who need to travel to specialist services in Katherine and Darwin and ensure their care is appropriately coordinated.

We provide a holistic service to address the social and emotional wellbeing of communities in our region. We offer support in a range of areas including:

• Grief
• Trauma
• Worry
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Psychosis
• Alcohol and substance misuse
• Domestic and family violence

We are committed to training our staff in delivering Aboriginal Mental Health First Aid and other programs. We also work with local service providers and agencies to circulate information and provide integrated support to our communities.

We employ a range of allied health and specialist professionals to support our primary health care services.

Our Food Supply Nutritionist works closely with our Health Promotion Team, schools, shops and aged care facilities to improve food security and affordable access to nutritious food.

Our Dietitian supports clients one or one or in small groups and supports clients to make changes to their diet to prevent or to improve chronic disease.

Our Diabetes Educator engages with clients to discuss the management of diabetes, diet, medication and related health issues.

Our Physiotherapist and Exercise Physiologist work to improve the health and mobility of community members, and prevent, treat and rehabilitate physical conditions. This is especially important for the management of chronic health diseases.

Visiting specialists include:

• Cardiologists
• Gynaecologists
• Physicians
• Paediatricians
• Podiatrists
• Audiologists
• Optometrists
• Opthamologists
• Dentists

We also employ Remote Community Outreach Workers to connect those living with a disability to the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The Mobile Team travels to the most remote regions of the NT. The team is staffed by experienced remote area nurses and enables our most isolated clients of the region to have continued access to health service and support.

The Tackling Indigenous Smoking (TIS) project is an Australian Government funded initiative which uses numerous health promotion activities to raise awareness about the negative health effects of tobacco use and support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to reduce the use of tobacco.

Our TIS team works with the Katherine West communities to:

• support quitting and reduction of tobacco use
• encourage smoke-free cars and homes
• and increase the number of smoke free venues and events.

The Katherine West region’s Maternal Early Childhood Sustained Home-visiting (MECSH) program was rebranded through community consultation as Strong Beginnings for Strong Families (SB4SF).

Our SB4SF Cultural Support worker, SB4SF social care workers and SB4SF nurses work with mums and families to provide information and support around growing healthy babies. The program also advocates for support on housing issues and provides advice around budgeting and connecting with support services.

The program is available for mums-to-be and their families until the child is three years old.

The Australian Government funded Safe Families and Safe Communities project aims to build safer families in our communities by raising awareness about respectful relationships, positive parenting and access to support services available to prevent and respond to domestic and family violence.

Along with providing individual support to women and families, the project works in collaboration with other organisations to facilitate information sessions and provide support to our communities.