Sunrise Health Service Aboriginal Corporation has spent the year continuously planning with other Aboriginal Health Services and with the NT Government, to prevent and manage any out breaks of COVID-19 that may occur. It has been incredibly time consuming and has involved significant engagement with our communities - but we have still continued to deliver acute and chronic health services during these difficult times.
Our immunisation rate is 10% higher
than the NT average
Birthweights are lower in our region compared
to national, state and regional averages.
We are proud to report that we are still delivering 5 out of 13 National Health Implementation Plan 2023 targets, despite COVID-19, and are consistently delivering above Territory and National averages in Key Performance Indicators as well as the Implementation Plan targets.
Key to measuring health status is robust data collection and data analysis and Sunrise Health Service has invested heavily in modifying our Communicare patient data system to capture data that allows us to track our progress on performance indicators as well as inform discussion on NDIS and other new health initiatives.
Apart from Primary Health Care, our teams work consistently in key prevention areas such as men’s, women’s & maternal health, child health, alcohol and other drugs (including tobacco), social and emotional wellbeing, sexual health and blood borne viruses, NDIS, integrated team care, chronic health, nutrition, physical activity and physiotherapy, environmental health and eye health.
Our work in these areas as well as primary health care lead us to conclude that without addressing the social determinants of Indigenous health and wellbeing, it will be near impossible to deliver the full National Health Implementation Plan targets. The Board supports this view and will be developing community-based strategies to address these social determinants that impact community health and wellbeing.
NATIONAL GOAL BY 2023 IS 60%
NATIONAL TARGET FOR 2023 IS 88%
National target for 2023 is 70%
national target for 2023 is 69%
National target for 2023 is 69%
National target for 2023 is 69%
The National target by 2023 is 40%
National target for 2023 is 63-74%
National target for 2023 is 64%
During our planning processes, it was identified that the biggest gaps in service delivery (that are within our scope to affect) were:
Chronic disease care plans
Community development
Health promotion
Immunisations 55+
First antenatal visit
Indigenous workforce (increasing the
number of Aboriginal Health Practitioners)
Male engagement
Men’s health checks
When you look at the gaps and the statistics, particularly around chronic disease, it becomes clear why addressing the social determinants of health becomes so important to addressing the health issues in the communities in which we work.
It will require us to work differently but still in the spirit of an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation and in the spirit of the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Health Plan.
Currently, as well as Primary Health Care, our public health services work in the following key prevention areas: men’s and women’s & maternal health, child health, intensive family support, alcohol and other drugs (including tobacco), social and emotional wellbeing, sexual health and blood borne viruses, personal helpers and mentors, integrated team care, chronic health, nutrition, physical activity and physiotherapy, environmental health and eye health.
All of which when fully integrated with Primary Health Care should deliver a family care model that addresses all determinants of poor health and addresses the unacceptable incidence of chronic disease in our communities.
With 30% of the population under 15 years of age, 59% aged between 15 and 55 and only 11% of the population being older than 55 years of age.
The nominal total ATSI population of Sunrise Health Service Aboriginal Corporation (SHSAC) Communities is 1858 females and 1746 males (total 3604) in the Katherine East region. Of this population, 1042 (29%) are under the age of 15. At times SHSAC communities are subject to substantial client inflows from adjoining regions and this can temporarily boost population by up to 50%.
Our services cover 14 remote communities and their associated outstations through 9 primary health care centres in an approximate 400km arc from Katherine. The primary access roads are the Central Arnhem Highway and the Roper Highway with only the Mataranka Primary Health Care Centre being on the main Stuart Highway. Our service area covers some 64,000 sq.km.
Our client base has a high burden of disease and consistent long term effort is needed to reverse trends.
1362 (53.2%) of the adult population have at least one chronic disease (53.5% of females and 52.8% of males) with more than half the clients in the audit having more than one chronic condition.
632 (24.7%) have Chronic Renal Disease, 443 (17.3%) have diabetes, 320 (12.5%) have mental health diagnoses.
In the 2019-2020 year, 181 clients were newly diagnosed with chronic conditions. This is an alarming 13.3% growth in burden of disease particularly in chronic kidney disease, diabetes and Rheumatic Heart Disease.
NT KPI results from July 2020 show that we are doing a very good job at getting Health Checks and Chronic Disease checks done (83-95%) and checking HbA1c in diabetics (87%). nKPI Dec 2020 shows us 69% GP management plan (compared to 63% national). This high coverage is increasingly difficult to maintain with our current under-resourcing and growing service demand. This year we have the added strain of having to deal with the widespread effects of the global pandemic of COVID-19. Fortunately we have been able to keep COVID-19 infection out of our communities.
Our retinal screening rates were quite high, but with the loss of the ability to fund a Chronic Disease Coordinator position our capacity for this has decreased. Telehealth has also suffered from this and similar capacity reasons.
