Southpoint Family Doctors: working for healthier, happier and resilient people

Pacific healthcare provider Southpoint Family Doctors, owned and run by Dr Hinamaha Lutui and Dr Fiona Shepherd, is a successful medical practice improving the health and wellbeing of Pacific people.

Best friends from medical school, both doctors wanted to do more to help people in the community they lived in and loved: south Auckland.

“We knew we could make a real difference to people’s lives by starting up a healthcare practice of our own—so ten years ago, that’s just what we did,” says Dr Shepherd.

“Back at the start, we both worked here half of the time—we couldn’t afford to have both of us here full-time, and we had no real knowledge about how to run a business either. Now, we employ around 30 people, including doctors, nurses, and social and clinical navigators.”

Southpoint offers a range of services including medical consults, podiatry, mental wellness, psychology, health screening and social navigation, both in the clinic and out in the community.

“COVID-19 taught us a lot about how to operate outside of our clinic by reaching out to people—doing mental health and medical consults over the phone, and supporting people in the community who were isolating,” says Dr Lutui.

“Now, we are really visible in the community. Our team go into people’s homes and provide vaccinations and healthcare, and we hold events where people can come in and chat with us about things like women’s health and diabetes, and at the same time get screened for a range of health issues.

“It’s all community driven, we go where our people need us—we bring the healthcare to them, rather than sitting back and waiting for them to come to us.”

Adapting to the needs of the people they serve has been a critical part of their journey.

“We quickly realised that a lot of health issues aren’t just medical,” says Dr Shepherd. “They can arise from circumstances like overcrowding and damp homes, which we can’t directly impact. So over the last ten years we have adapted to respond in a different way: educating people on what they need to do to keep well, and empowering them to do it.”

Dr Lutui says they have based their centre on the experiences they had with doctors when they were young. “When I was growing up, whole families were treated by the same GP, and that’s the kind of style that we have adopted here. We know them, we know their history, we know their family and their histories.

“We do a lot of extended appointments, and we try to always have the time for acute consultations,” she continues. “So if people are really ill and need to see a doctor quickly we do our best to fit them in on the day, rather than send them to urgent care clinics or asking them to wait for weeks to come in.”

Dr Shepherd says that both herself and Dr Lutui are incredibly committed to what they do.

“Our hearts and souls are here in south Auckland. Everything we do is to benefit and improve the lives of our Pacific people and communities, in all areas of their lives—mentally, spiritually, socially and physically.”