Our Mission
Miwatj Health’s mission is to improve the health and wellbeing of residents of communities of the East Arnhem Land region through the delivery of appropriate and comprehensive primary health care and the promotion and co-ordination of control by Aboriginal communities of primary health care resources.
Health education at Donydji homeland community
Miwatj Health's core functions are:
- The provision of clinical services to Aboriginal communities in the East Arnhem Land region, including both acute care and longer-term preventive care
- Implementation of a range of population/public health programs and strategies which address the underlying causes of illness
- Advocacy in support of the right of Aboriginal people to control their own health services and for such health services to receive funding and resources adequate to address the health problems of the region
- Ensuring efficient, accountable administrative and financial systems support for the delivery of our services
Our Approach
Keeping accurate, up to date and confidential client files is an
important role for all our health staff. Miwatj Health is now
replacing paper files with a more efficient computerized
Patient Information and Recall System
The underlying philosophy of Miwatj Health is the fundamental right of Aboriginal people to control their own health services. This supports the Alma Ata Declaration of the World Health Organisation, which emphasized people’s right to participate in the planning and implementation of health services, and supports the long-accepted principle of self-determination for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We implement this through our Board governance structure, and through our daily involvement in health issues at a grass-roots community level. Miwatj Health believes the way forward in Aboriginal health lies in the implementation of comprehensive primary health care. This includes primary medical care, but also goes beyond that to emphasise a wide-ranging and holistic approach. Effective health care for Aboriginal people in the Miwatj region should involve:
- local ownership and involvement;
- a population health approach – that is, addressing the health of populations not just individuals;
- an emphasis on prevention;
- a wide range of services including allied health and mental health, linked together so that primary health care becomes a system;
- recognition of the role of traditional culture;
- strong cross-cultural communication to promote patient self-management;
- the flexibility to deliver services as close as possible to where people live; and
- action to address the social determinants of health.
The building blocks of our health system
Miwatj Health sees primary health care as an interlinked system, not just a series of unconnected events. We support the view of the World Health Organisation that an effective health system has 6 building blocks, all of which must be at optimum level if we are to provide best practice health care:
- Health services: delivering effective, safe, quality personal and non-personal health interventions to those that need them, when and where they need them, with minimum waste of resources. Miwatj Health provides clinical and community-based services to meet the needs of the region, at the standard required for national accreditation.
- Health workforce: sufficient staff, fairly distributed; competent, responsive and productive. The nurses, doctors, Aboriginal Health Workers and allied health staff employed by Miwatj Health are highly skilled; are registered with their professional associations; and are dedicated to the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal people.
- Health information: producing, analyzing, disseminating and using reliable and timely information on health determinants, health system performance and health status. Miwatj Health runs a computerized Patient Information and Recall Service which guides clinicians in recalling patients when needed, and which also functions as a population health database.
- Medical products, vaccines and technologies: with equitable access, assured quality, safe, efficacious, cost-effective and scientifically sound. Quality-assured pharmaceuticals are provided to our clients free-of-charge (under Section 100 of the PBS legislation) when needed.
- Health financing: adequate funds, directed in ways that ensure people can use needed services; that people are protected from financial catastrophe or impoverishment associated with having to pay for the services; and which provides incentives for providers and users to be efficient. Miwatj Health does not charge for its services – most are provided free under the Medical Benefits Scheme. However, there is an urgent need to stop the fragmented funding under which we operate. Miwatj Health receives dozens of separate and uncoordinated government grants, all of which must be acquitted separately. This situation prevents us carrying out rational planning.
- Leadership and governance: strategic policy frameworks which are combined with effective oversight, coalition-building, regulation, attention to system design and accountability. Board members and senior staff at Miwatj Health are all aware of the need for leadership.
Miwatj Health pays attention to all these things. In the East Arnhem Land region, however, an additional factor comes into play: the role of culture and tradition. The role of cultural leaders, traditional kinship structures, and the connection between land and health which is embedded in the world view of the people of this region, provide challenges which impart a unique identity to Miwatj Health.