Anyinginyi are ded­i­cat­ed to con­tin­u­ous qual­i­ty improve­ment (CQI) and answer­ing the ques­tion ​“How can we do this better?”

Across the organ­i­sa­tion we are com­mit­ted to best prac­tice and pro­vid­ing a safe and qual­i­ty health ser­vice for our clients. We look for gaps in the care we pro­vide and con­tin­u­al­ly work towards pro­viding bet­ter care. 

Our CQI pro­gram uses the prin­ci­ples and frame­work from the Abo­rig­i­nal Med­ical Ser­vices Alliance North­ern Territory’s (AMSANT) NT CQI program.

Our con­tin­u­ous qual­i­ty improve­ment ini­tia­tives include:

“As the Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer, I look for­ward to work­ing with staff, our Board of Direc­tors and stake­hold­ers to respond to com­mu­ni­ty needs in work­ing towards bet­ter health out­comes for Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple.” Dr Leisa McCarthy 2022

The CEO is respon­si­ble for:

This role ensures high-lev­el coor­di­na­tion and sup­port to the Board and CEO to meet cor­po­ra­tion good gov­er­nance and man­age­ment account­abil­i­ties, pol­i­cy and research integrity. 

This posi­tion is respon­si­ble for iden­ti­fy­ing issues impact­ing on Abo­rig­i­nal Health and work­ing with the Board and CEO to devel­op solu­tions. They pro­vide pol­i­cy advice through sub­mis­sions and rel­e­vant doc­u­men­ta­tion to both gov­ern­ments and key stakeholders. 

Their goal is to strength­en Anyinginyi Health Abo­rig­i­nal Corporation’s capa­bil­i­ty to more effec­tive­ly devel­op and for­mu­late pol­i­cy themes, research devel­op­ment and good gov­er­nance prac­tices. This role must apply the Anyinginyi Cul­tur­al Frame­work and adhere to com­mu­ni­ty-spe­cif­ic pro­to­cols in all aspects of devel­op­ment, for­mu­la­tion and design work.

Our pro­grams focus on every stage of our clients’ lives, from babies to the elder­ly, pro­vid­ing ded­i­cat­ed and focussed care in the areas of:

Abo­rig­i­nal Health Prac­ti­tion­ers (AHPs) are respon­si­ble for deliv­er­ing safe, high qual­i­ty clin­i­cal ser­vices and patient care. With the increased scope of prac­tice that the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry trained Abo­rig­i­nal Health Prac­ti­tion­ers pos­sess, we are priv­i­leged to have Abo­rig­i­nal Health Prac­ti­tion­ers who are able to do more to address the health care needs of the community.



As the face of the Health Ser­vices sec­tion, Abo­rig­i­nal Health Prac­ti­tion­ers play a piv­otal role in build­ing the community’s trust. They oper­ate in accor­dance with the Pri­ma­ry Clin­i­cal Care Man­u­al as well as applic­a­ble leg­is­la­tion and reg­u­la­tions. AHPs act as a bridge in ensur­ing that non-Abo­rig­i­nal staff pro­vide cul­tur­al­ly safe and appro­pri­ate care and services.

The Anyinginyi Health Cen­tre is often the first point of con­tact for our clients. 

The pur­­pose-built Health Cen­tre hosts:

Anyinginyi Health under­stands the impor­tance of oral health and the effects on the whole of body. We ensure that our den­tal team is ful­ly func­tion­al with our Den­tist and Den­tal Assis­tant work­ing togeth­er to ensure the best pos­si­ble care is pro­vid­ed to our Abo­rig­i­nal clients.

The Den­tal Ser­vices team works in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Health Cen­tre for the pre­ven­tion and treat­ment of all oral health prob­lems. The den­tal team is also part of the chron­ic dis­ease man­age­ment team, specif­i­cal­ly work­ing in the pre­ven­tion and man­age­ment of Chron­ic Dis­ease such as Tooth Decay and Rheumat­ic Heart Disease. 



Good oral health con­tributes to gen­er­al well­be­ing by pre­vent­ing the onset of many dis­eases. If not pre­vent­ed or treat­ed ear­ly, these dis­eases could become seri­ous conditions.

Giv­en Ten­nant Creek is a small town, Anyinginyi Health at times will extend its ser­vices to oth­er clients on an emer­gency basis only. The Ten­nant Creek Hos­pi­tal has a reg­u­lar vis­it­ing Den­tist, how­ev­er, Anyinginyi Health may see some emer­gency clients on refer­ral, at times when the vis­it­ing hos­pi­tal Den­tist is not in town.

Fol­low­ing localised cul­tur­al pro­to­col Anyinginyi Health boasts a pur­pose built Men’s clin­ic. We are among one of the few Abo­rig­i­nal Con­trolled organ­i­sa­tions across the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry to have a sep­a­rate clin­ic specif­i­cal­ly for Men’s Health. The clin­ic is staffed and man­aged by senior Abo­rig­i­nal Health Prac­ti­tion­ers who are sup­port­ed by male Gen­er­al Prac­ti­tion­ers and on occa­sions Reg­is­tered Nurses.

Anyinginyi takes the lead in ensur­ing that it con­tin­u­al­ly pro­vides a safe and secure space for Wumpurrarni men to access pri­ma­ry health care ser­vices in a cul­tur­al­ly appro­pri­ate environment.

The oper­a­tions of the Clin­ic are guid­ed by the cul­tur­al pro­to­cols devel­oped by Tra­di­tion­al Own­ers and the Elders from the Com­mu­ni­ty aimed at ensur­ing respect for Waru­mungu Coun­try and the organisation. 

The pro­to­cols pave the way for improv­ing work­ing rela­tions between all staff, Wumpurrarni men, young and old per­sons. These pro­to­cols also under­pin a frame­work for treat­ment and care of Wumpurrarni men who are known as the least like­ly to use health ser­vices and who have the worst health out­comes of any group in Australia.



Anyinginyi Health recog­nis­es the impor­tance of work­ing in a cul­tur­al­ly respon­sive man­ner in its own duty of care to its Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly Abo­rig­i­nal men.

Vis­it­ing spe­cial­ists and allied health prac­ti­tion­ers that con­tribute to our Abo­rig­i­nal health mod­el and client ​‘wrap-around’ ser­vices include:

Manu Kinap­ina Parlpu­ru Nin­ji Kari — Region­al Remote Health Ser­vices (RRHS), pro­vides pri­ma­ry health care and allied health ser­vices to res­i­dents of the Bark­ly Region. 

The RRHS team ensures Anyinginyi Health are able to expand its pri­ma­ry health care ser­vices to sur­round­ing Abo­rig­i­nal communities. 

The team ser­vices four remote com­mu­ni­ties two in the South (Mungkar­ta and Ngu­yarrmi­ni) and two in the North (Wogyala and Corel­la Creek) Bark­ly Region. All com­mu­ni­ties are vis­it­ed once fort­night­ly except for Mungkar­ta as it has a greater pop­u­la­tion as com­pared to the oth­er three com­mu­ni­ties. All vis­its are day trips expect for the Corel­la Creek trip which is an approx­i­mate­ly 800km return trip. 

This ini­tia­tive to cov­er remote com­mu­ni­ties is one of Anyinginyis’ efforts of going far and beyond in clos­ing the gap — that is try­ing to meet the health needs of Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander peo­ple who have chal­lenges access­ing health ser­vices due to distance. 



Oth­er than attend­ing to dai­ly and emerg­ing health needs of the com­mu­ni­ties, the main focus of the Region­al Remote team is:

Health pro­mo­tion plays a big role in com­mu­ni­ty inclu­sion and devel­op­ment. By inter­acting with indi­vid­u­als in a cul­tur­al­ly appro­pri­ate way we can help build the capac­i­ty of com­mu­ni­ties to improve their own health.

Our aim is to enable peo­ple to increase their con­trol over, and to improve, their own health. We work­ towards elim­i­nat­ing pre­ventable health issues by help­ing peo­ple make informed deci­sions. The health pro­mo­tion team con­sult with the com­mu­ni­ty and work with oth­er mem­bers of the Pub­lic Health Sec­tion, oth­er areas of Anyinginyi and exter­nal organisations.

Our health pro­mo­tion activ­i­ties target:

Anyinginyi runs the only eye health pro­gram in the Bark­ly Region. We run optometrist and oph­thal­mol­o­gist (eye spe­cial­ist) clin­ics in Ten­nant Creek and some remote com­mu­ni­ties.

The pri­or­i­ties of the Eye Health team are: 

Tra­choma is an infec­tion of the upper inner lin­ing of the eye­lid, caused by the bac­te­ria chlamy­dia tra­choma­tis. Acute infec­tions occur more com­mon­ly in young chil­dren, and repeat­ed untreat­ed infec­tions in child­hood can lead to blind­ness in old­er adults.



Per­son-to-per­son con­tact, flies and shar­ing tow­els can all spread tra­choma. Risk fac­tors for con­tract­ing tra­choma include:

The Anyinginyi Health com­mu­ni­ty nutri­tion pro­gram aims to cre­ate an envi­ron­ment that sup­ports good health. The nutri­tion ser­vices pro­vid­ed in Ten­nant Creek are con­stant­ly evolv­ing to adapt to the needs and requests of com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and organ­i­sa­tions.

The pro­gram includes atten­dance at large health pro­mo­tion events that spread mes­sages of good health to whole com­mu­ni­ties, nutri­tion edu­ca­tion and cook­ing work­shops with var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty groups and schools, as well as indi­vid­ual con­sults with clients referred from the health clin­ic.

In addi­tion to the pre­dom­i­nant­ly town-based ini­tia­tives, the nutri­tion­ist also vis­it remote Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ties on a reg­u­lar basis. Togeth­er with the rest of the team at Anyinginyi, the dieti­cian endeav­ours to pro­vide holis­tic care and build the capac­i­ty of the com­mu­ni­ty to make healthy lifestyle choices.

The Tack­ling Indige­nous Smok­ing (TIS) Pro­gram is a tar­get­ed ini­tia­tive, fund­ed by the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment. The pro­gram is com­mu­ni­ty-led and aims to reduce smok­ing rates among Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander peo­ple. Our team works hand in hand with com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to cre­ate a healthy envi­ron­ment where future gen­er­a­tions will have a smoke-free place to live in and our suc­cess is mea­sured by the num­ber of peo­ple who quit smok­ing. 

Fur­ther­more, as a com­mu­ni­ty-led pro­gram, the TIS team at Anyinginyi Health Abo­rig­i­nal Cor­po­ra­tion is devot­ed to sup­port­ing health­i­er lifestyles with­in the Bark­ly region. 

The team assists peo­ple to quit smok­ing using evi­dence-based prac­tice approach­es as well as rel­e­vant resources which ensures peo­ple have the tools to start their quit­ting jour­ney. Approach­es and tools include, but are not lim­it­ed to, Nico­tine Replace­ment Ther­a­py (NRT), and design­ing cul­tur­al­ly appro­pri­ate resources. The TIS team works across the Bark­ly region to deliv­er ade­quate sup­port to eleven remote communities:

TIS Photo Gallery

Bring­ing Them Home assists indi­vid­uals and sup­ports fam­i­lies to deal with trau­ma and grief brought about by the forced sep­a­ra­tion of chil­dren from their families.

For this ser­vice Stronger Families works in part­ner­ship with Link Up Ser­vices, Cen­tral Aus­tralia Stolen Gen­er­a­tions and Cen­tral Aus­tralian Abo­rig­i­nal Congress.

Our work in this area aims at reduc­ing the pre­v­e­lance of fam­i­ly vio­lence and child abuse in the Ten­nant Creek com­mu­ni­ty. We do this by build­ing the capac­i­ty of fam­i­lies, indi­vid­u­als and the wider com­mu­ni­ty to address these issues.

We pro­vide:

Our pre­ven­ta­tive and ear­ly inter­ven­tion fam­i­ly sup­port ser­vice, focus­es on fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships, par­ent­ing and fam­i­ly law services. 



The ser­vice helps peo­ple nav­i­gate life tran­si­tions and assists fam­i­lies who are vul­ner­a­ble to poor out­comes to build their resources and capa­bil­i­ties. Its aim is to enable more pos­i­tive fam­i­ly functioning.

We pro­vide coun­selling ser­vices as a part of our holis­tic approach to Abo­rig­i­nal health care. By pro­mot­ing men­tal well­ness we aim to equip our clients to over­come issues in their lives.