We’ve all got used to the idea of a membership for movement. A boutique Pilates studio, an infrared sauna club, a gym with a smoothie bar and creche. But what if the same model applied to your actual healthcare – your GP, your gynaecologist, your psychologist, your pelvic floor physio?
That’s the premise behind Adelaide’s Women’s Health +, which has just unveiled an Australian-first flagship in Norwood: a $700,000, purpose-built destination that folds specialist medical care, boutique fitness, wellness and beauty into one membership-based model. Think less waiting room, more wellness retreat. And, healthcare you actually opt into, rather than one you only turn to in a crisis.
Why We’re Ready For This
There’s a reason preventative health has become the wellness world’s favourite buzz phrase. We’re living longer, and increasingly, we want those extra years to actually feel good.
“We’re fortunate enough now to live longer, and we want better quality of life, not just more years,” says Dr Hanan Maghazaji, founder of Women’s Health +. “People are far more health conscious, and there’s a growing understanding that prevention is much better than cure.”
It’s a shift in the question women are asking themselves, she says. “It isn’t just ‘how do I feel better today? It’s ‘how do I make sure I still feel well in ten, twenty, thirty years?’ Once you start thinking that way, health stops being something you attend to when it breaks.”
The Problem With Traditional Healthcare
If you’ve ever been bounced between three different specialists for one issue, retelling your history each time while your notes mysteriously fail to follow you, you’ll understand exactly the gap Women’s Health + is trying to close.
“Traditional clinics are too clinical,” Dr Maghazaji explains. “Women’s health can be very sensitive. And a cold, sterile environment doesn’t help anyone feel comfortable enough to raise what they’ve come to raise. We wanted a space that disarms women the moment they walk in.”
Then there’s the fragmentation. “Women’s health is complex. And having multiple practitioners in multiple locations trying to help with a single concern is exhausting,” she says. “You retell your story again and again, notes don’t get sent, practitioners don’t communicate. One team, one clinic.”
Co-owner Ali Hadi puts it simply: “Our bodies are interconnected. And focusing on just one area doesn’t address all the underlying causes. What you eat impacts your skin and mood; mental stress can increase inflammation, exacerbating symptoms. And the list goes on. We are meant to be treated as a whole, not just a part.”
What’s Actually Inside
Step inside the new Norwood flagship – designed by Studio 2049 and Nathan Ngo, with interiors that take cues from AESOP, SHA Wellness and Othership rather than your standard bulk-billing clinic – and you’ll find:
- A women-only boutique gym
- An infrared sauna
- A wellness hub with private treatment pods
- Lymphatic drainage massage and general massage therapies
- LED therapy, facials, peels and laser treatments
- Iron infusions and IV infusions
- Cosmetic medicine, psychology, dietetics and pelvic health physiotherapy, alongside GP and gynaecology services
It’s a long way from fluorescent lighting and a shared waiting room – patients are welcomed by a concierge, offered refreshments, and moved through calming lounge spaces rather than parked under strip lighting until their name is called.
How Everything Is Connected
Ask Dr Maghazaji for proof that the body doesn’t operate in silos, and she doesn’t have to think hard for an example.
“Take bladder issues and incontinence,” she says. “A lot of other conditions can make them worse – habits like drinking too much fluid, or the type of fluids you drink; medications, and sometimes supplements or natural remedies with a diuretic effect. Diabetes can make bladder symptoms significantly worse. Perimenopause and genitourinary syndrome of menopause cause urgency. Even back problems and nerve pressure can affect the bladder.”
Perimenopause is another area where most of us only know half the story. “Everyone knows about hot flushes, mood changes and night sweats. But far fewer people know about palpitations, brain fog, crawling sensations in the skin, joint aches and pains, bloating and lactose intolerance,” she says.
And then there’s endometriosis, “and its association with bowel pain, bloating, diet, urinary frequency, and symptoms that mimic a urinary tract infection.”
“These connections run in every direction,” she adds. “What you eat can affect your skin and your mood. Psychological stress can drive inflammation, which can worsen physical symptoms. There are many examples where family history and hereditary conditions influence symptoms. Or where something in a woman’s medical history affects a gynaecological problem. Focusing on one area in isolation rarely addresses everything that’s contributing.”
It’s also why the wellness offering sits alongside the medical care rather than beside it as an afterthought. Even the gym has been designed with intention. “We know how daunting large commercial gyms can be, so we’ve created a smaller space with limited numbers, where women can move without the concerns that stop so many of them from exercising at all,” Dr Maghazaji says. “The infrared sauna sits alongside that as part of a broader health and wellness plan rather than as a standalone answer to anything.”
Why Membership, Not Just Medicine
The clinic’s membership model gives members ongoing access to the gym and sauna, events, complimentary treatments and discounted services. It is the same structure you’d expect from a fitness studio, just applied to your GP visits and pelvic floor check-ins instead.
“A membership model then makes that easier to access,” Dr Maghazaji says. “It reduces the cost barrier and allows your providers to communicate with each other, which supports better-coordinated care throughout your health journey.”
And she pushes back on the idea that this is simply luxury wellness dressed up. “The point of the membership isn’t luxury. It’s making the ongoing, unglamorous parts of looking after yourself affordable enough that you actually do them,” she says. “If you want to be able to move well, get out of a chair easily, play with your grandchildren, carry your own suitcase in your 70s, then looking after your health at 20 and 30 is a necessity, not an indulgence.”
The Bigger Shift
What’s interesting is how much has changed in the questions women are bringing to appointments. “Women are now asking their GPs for earlier referrals for problems like heavy or painful periods, rather than accepting short-term solutions without investigation,” Dr Maghazaji notes. “They’re coming forward with perimenopausal symptoms and wanting to discuss HRT. They’re seeking help for painful sex and urinary incontinence.”
She’s seen the same story play out for nearly two decades. “A woman who has been living with symptoms for years without realising she didn’t have to. Either she was too embarrassed to raise it, or she’d assumed it was simply part of being a woman.”
It’s a system-level problem too, she points out – one where the funding often only kicks in once a condition is already serious. “If you have osteopenia – thinning of the bone – you pay full price for medications to correct it,” she says. “But if you have osteoporosis, a more advanced stage that carries a much higher risk of fracture and expensive complications, those medications are subsidised.”
“It’s like watching a car roll towards a cliff. No matter how slowly it’s moving, it will go over the edge. We could stop the car, but we watch until it falls.” – Dr Hanan Maghazaji
Her hope for the future of women’s healthcare is refreshingly direct. “Stop soldiering through and putting everyone else’s wellbeing ahead of your own,” she says. “Stop minimising your symptoms because someone once told you they were normal. Remember, self-care isn’t selfish, it’s essential.”
What The Next Decade Looks Like
Dr Maghazaji is clear-eyed about where she thinks the field is headed. “We believe the next decade will be defined by prevention rather than reaction, by integrated multidisciplinary care, and by medicine that is genuinely personalised to a woman’s stage of life, with far more attention paid to longevity and healthy ageing,” she says. “Underneath all of it sits education, so women can make properly informed decisions.”
Could This Become the New Normal?
Dr Maghazaji believes health club-style memberships could eventually sit alongside gym memberships as a completely unremarkable part of adult life. “What members describe is the difference between having one doctor and having a team behind you,” she says. “Priority access when you need it, proactive check-ins rather than only turning up when something’s wrong, and a plan that’s coordinated across practitioners instead of a series of disconnected appointments. Once women experience healthcare that way, it’s very hard to go back to the alternative.”
With Women’s Health + already planning to expand across Adelaide before taking the model interstate, it might not be long before “health club” sits right next to “Pilates studio” on everyone’s list of monthly memberships.
