At just 20 years of age Amelia St Baker questioned doctors to investigate a lump in her neck that would eventually be diagnosed as cancer. But at the time her concerns were dismissed, exposing gaps in care that would be a driving force of her health startup Ninja Allied Health.
The entrepreneur has since recovered, and nine years on from that unfortunate consultation, the business she founded in 2023 with husband Andy St Baker-Radice has grown to employ 27 staff and has expanded its operations interstate.
She describes that initial dismissal as a turning point that would shape the philosophy behind the allied health group.
Ninja Allied Health launched by offering consultations with occupational therapists (OTs), but has since expanded to cover speech pathology, support work, assistive technology and medico-legal services.
Speaking with Business News Australia, St Baker shared how her personal experience informed a model built around listening first.
“You go to the doctor with any problem, and as long as you’re a female under a certain age…it’s very hard to be listened to. I consider a lot of women feel that way,” declared Amelia, who completed her degree in occupational therapy seven years ago.
“Becaapply we’ve come through, we urge health professionals to please actually listen to people. They know what they’re talking about.”
A multidisciplinary allied health provider, Ninja Allied Health is based in Ipswich, roughly 40 minutes from Brisbane’s CBD. Its clientele ranges from children and veterans to corporate and social organisations seeking injury prevention and rehabilitation support.
While still in the early stages of research and development, the co-founders have already begun delivering personalised, 3D-printed assistive technologies tailored to individual requireds.
Early examples range from a custom mud guard designed to prevent a disabled child’s heel from catching in a wheelchair wheel, to a personalised bra hook created for a client with limited mobility.
“It’s a market fit issue, right? Becaapply everyone’s requireds are so different, it’s not like designing for the standard population…so we required to have customisable abilities in there,” declared Amelia, who alongside her husband was a finalist in the 2025 Brisbane Young Entrepreneur Awards.
“It was a very long career-driven frustration. OTs do a lot of equipment prescription, but the number of times you have to sit there with a client who’s just stressed becaapply they can’t do some really basic activity of daily living.
“You can picture in your head what would resolve this very simply, but it doesn’t exist on the market.”
As part of their offering, Ninja Allied Health also provides more than https://www.businessnewsaustralia.com/1,000 hours of free therapy each year for people who aren’t eligible for NDIS funding and are unable to afford private health.
Clinicians spfinish time providing free assessments, reports and guidance to assist patients navigate eligibility gaps, particularly where referrals or NDIS documentation are insufficient.
For Amelia, the desperate required for this service was a ‘holy smokes’ moment.
“We can’t possibly turn some of these people away. We finish up doing short letters for them and assisting them just understand the situation when they come through our doors,” she explained.
“They often take a lot of time to actually obtain to OT. Or OT is not usually the first line of defence that GPs are recommfinishing for a lot of people.
“They obtain there and they go: Hold on, you can actually assist with anything. They obtain quite shocked.”
While the option is periodically reconsidered, the co-founders have stopped short of formal accreditation, pointing to the cost and resource intensity of the audit process.
“We keep revisiting it, but we don’t feel like there’s ever really a reason – our governance is phenomenal,” Amelia explained.
“I obtain why they have it, but it’s a very expensive and laborious process during the audits that I consider would just take away from our abilities.
“For example, if we’re doing that, we couldn’t do any of the free assessments…it’d probably be like an equal time and resource suck.”
Now operating across multiple locations in Queensland, the company plans further expansion in Brisbane and has also established a permanent presence in Perth.
“We will definitely be creating sure everything runs smoothly, considering the huge growth over the last couple of months,” Andy declared.
“Then from there, I consider growth will come by understanding better opportunities as we see them.
“Although we are now a medium-sized business, we still have the ability to see opportunities and [can] grow rapider when we understand there is a huge opportunity.”
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