Shadow Minister for Health, Bill Yan, says NT Health has now been forced to return to the old
governance of silos, while regions have been stripped of local decision-making, after Labor
pushed through a rewrite of the Health Services Act.
“This afternoon, the Labor Government passed legislation to centralise all of our health
services, a reversal of the previous reforms undertaken by the CLP Government back in 2014.
“These laws overturn the decentralisation of our health services, which was intended to
ensure that decision-making isn’t solely driven from Darwin. The Gunner Government has
rushed together a quick plan and hopes to force the Department of Health, Top End Health
Services and Central Australia Heath Services to merge back into one mega-department by
mid-year.
“The Gunner Government clearly doesn’t understand that the Top End and Central Australia
are two different regions with different challenges and complexities. We will see confusion
within the Department as well as in the regions and remote communities.
“Labor is more than happy to increase red tape and further distance health staff from the
decision-makers who are making critical judgements about their regions, at times from afar
with possibly little concept of the local people and local pressures.
“At a time when the Territory is still dealing with the developing impact of COVID-19 and the
vaccine rollout, amalgamating our health services will create chaos and unnecessary pressure
on our already burdened health sector. Further pressure will be heaped on health when the
Chief Minister takes over management of Howard Springs from AUSMAT.
“All of this is taking place with a new Chief Executive Office at the helm – appointed to a
position required to provide crucial leadership to balance and manage all of these critical
issues impacting on our health services. It’s a lot to take on just days into the job.
“This amalgamation came out of a $581,787 Ernst and Young consultancy, which was
originally commissioned to review the Department of Health’s COVID-19 response and
morphed into recommendations to help steer this major internal restructure.
“We’ve asked for a copy of this report but it’s been marked secret by the Health Minister.
What’s in this report that the government is so desperate to keep out of the public? Without
it, Territorians can’t evaluate whether this needless amalgamation is hitting its key
benchmarks,” said Mr Yan.