Apunipima Cape York Health Council is consistently outperforming other health services when it comes to meeting the government’s National Key Performance Indicators for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Primary Health Care.

Apunipima, which operates a clinic in Mossman, performs significantly better when it comes to maternal and child health care with:

• 73% of Cape York mums receiving their first antenatal visit before 13 weeks compared to 38% nationally; 

• 93% of Cape babies have their birth weights recorded compared to 61% nationally;

• 98% of Cape kids are fully immunised compared to 90% nationally;

• 42% of children between 0-4 receiving a health check compared to 27% nationally.

In Mossman Gorge, Apunipima’s only fully community controlled primary health care centre, the outcomes against the National Key Performance Indicators see the centre perform in the top 25th Percentile for the care they give their clients.

Apunipima’s Senior Medical Officer, Dr Jacki Mein said, “We know that to create parity in Cape York we have a long way to go but are pleased that the outcomes against these measure are showing what a difference community controlled primary health care can do in terms of increasing access, engaging clients in their own health and most importantly improving outcomes.”

“It also helps that we have recently introduced an electronic medical record for our clients, meaning we are much better at recording, and it really helps being able to rely on our own data.”

Acknowledging where Apunipima has not performed so well in the past, Dr Mein explained “We have known for some time that there has been a gap in terms of the management of renal function in diabetics and have recently appointed a Renal Nurse to fill that gap.They will be working with our diabetic clients to record their renal function and establish a management plan to maintain or improve function where appropriate.”

Of 19 indicators Apunipima only misses the mark on five indicators, even then only marginally.

1. 15% of Cape York babies have a low birth weight compared to 13% nationally;

2. Only 61% of people have their smoking status recorded compared to 68% nationally;

3. 27% and 45% of people have a recorded BMI of overweight or obese compared to 26% and 40% nationally;

4. Alcohol consumption is recorded for 46% of people across Cape York rather than 47% nationally;

5. Cape York wide, diabetes clients with a kidney function test recorded stands at 29% compared to 63% nationally.