The Spinifex Health Ser­vice is an expand­ing Abo­rig­i­nal Com­mu­ni­ty-Con­trolled Health Ser­vice locat­ed in the Tjun­tjun­t­jara Com­mu­ni­ty on the Spinifex Lands, 680km north-east of Kal­go­or­lie in the Great Vic­to­ria Desert region of West­ern Australia. 

Our aims are to: 

• Improve the patient’s jour­ney and access to health care ser­vices and help close the gap in life expectan­cy for the Spinifex People
• Devel­op and deliv­er a high qual­i­ty evi­denced-based com­pre­hen­sive pri­ma­ry care ser­vice that address the cur­rent and future health needs of the community
• Advo­cate for and sup­port the health and com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment aspi­ra­tions of the com­mu­ni­ty by work­ing holis­ti­cal­ly with all com­mu­ni­ty and agency stake­hold­ers to address the social and envi­ron­men­tal deter­mi­nants of health
• Devel­op a Social and Emo­tion­al Well-Being Pro­gram with a focus on youth and improv­ing access to men­tal health services
• Address ear­ly child­hood devel­op­ment and mater­nal health needs in the community
• Improve com­mu­ni­ty access to HACC, dis­abil­i­ty and aged care ser­vices and facilities
• Build our work­force capac­i­ty to achieve excel­lence in remote ser­vice delivery
• Achieve best prac­tice in com­mu­ni­ty, cor­po­rate and clin­i­cal governance
• Plan and improve health infra­struc­ture to meet our needs

To achieve these goals the Spinifex Health Ser­vice pro­vides a com­pre­hen­sive pri­ma­ry health care ser­vice from the Tjun­tjun­t­jara Clin­ic, with a strong focus on chron­ic dis­ease man­age­ment, child and mater­nal health, social& emo­tion­al well-being, aged care and Home and Com­mu­ni­ty Care (HACC).

As a mem­ber of the Kakar­rara Wil­ur­rara Health Alliance, AHCWA and the Gold­fields Region Abo­rig­i­nal Health Plan­ning Forum the SHS and com­mu­ni­ty are ben­e­fit­ing from improved region­al engage­ment and part­ner­ships in ser­vice provision.