Leader of the Opposition, Lia Finocchiaro, says it is unacceptable Territorians weren’t alerted to a critical capacity issue at Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH) last week.
A ‘code yellow’ is an Australian Standard defined as a “serious internal emergency”, which may “adversely impact service delivery and/or the safety of staff, patients and visitors”.
“We’ve got a situation where RDH had a critical bed shortage, placing enormous and unnecessary pressure on our already stretched hospital. That in itself is deeply concerning. But the fact the Health Minister deliberately withheld this critical information is downright dangerous.
“This isn’t just a blunder, it’s another glaring example of a deliberate cover-up by the Gunner Government, and the Health Minister has serious questions to answer.
“If RDH is currently experiencing these critical capacity shortages, how would the hospital deal with a resource-intensive COVID-19 response if we experience community transfer? What contingency do we have to deal with the global pandemic? And would the Health Minister think that was worthy of a media release?
“The fact this was only uncovered through a tip off to the media just goes to show the extraordinary lengths Labor will go to, to avoid scrutiny,” said Ms Finocchiaro.