Shadow Minister for Health, Bill Yan, says the Health Minister needs to implement urgent short to medium-term solutions to ease the pressure on our understaffed and overburdened health system – in particular at Royal Darwin Hospital.
“The CLP is proposing stopgap measures for the management of Howard Springs, an interim refocus of services at Palmerston Hospital, a commitment to ongoing permanent healthcare positions, rather than fixed term contracts, as well as the urgent recruitment of properly-trained international health workers.
“The Gunner Government’s primary focus should be on the health needs of Territorians. Health Minister, Natasha Fyles, needs to admit she can’t oversee the management of the NT’s health system and Howard Springs.
“Four Code Yellow bed blocks at RDH in less than 12 months proves the Gunner Government can’t manage both. These critical bed shortages and repeated cancellations of elective surgery is absolutely debilitating for Territorians. The Gunner Government needs to immediately hand back the management of international arrivals at Howard Springs to the Federal Government.
“We have advocated for Palmerston Hospital to be used for aged care and dementia patients, as well as mental health patients, while the Gunner Government constructs long-overdue dedicated facilities. This will immediately free up dozens of aged care beds and staff at Royal Darwin Hospital.
“Critically, there should be no cuts to services at Palmerston Hospital, particularly in the Emergency Department. The tens of thousands of Territorians living in Palmerston and the rural area shouldn’t be punished because of the Gunner Government’s sensational mishandling of our health crisis and ongoing fiscal negligence.
“The CLP supports an immediate and targeted recruitment campaign for properly-trained international nurses and other health care staff to be brought to the Territory.
“We are in contact with the offices of the Federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt, and Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Zed Seselja, to explore bringing properly-trained health workers to the NT, similar to the Commonwealth’s scheme to bring aged care workers from Samoa to Central Australia.
“Let’s recruit international nurses to work at Howard Springs, and to undertake specific COVID-related duties, like swabbing and contact tracing – and bring back our NT health professionals from the Centre of National Resilience to Royal Darwin Hospital and across the NT, to alleviate pressure on our main tertiary hospital and our broader health system.
“But this shouldn’t just be a Federal Government solution. The NT Government needs to be proactive in the recruitment of local, interstate and properly-skilled overseas health workers as well as the retention of current staff.
“The Nurses Union estimates we need up to 100 nurses, right across the Territory, to plug the staff shortage gaps – yet, the Northern Territory Government employment webpage is only advertising around 50 jobs for nurses. What’s even more concerning than the shortfall in advertising is that more than 60 percent of advertised vacancies are for nurses on fixed term contracts. That doesn’t provide certainty and stability for any specialist health workers considering relocating to the Territory.
“We support ongoing permanent healthcare positions, rather than fixed term contracts, so that we can provide that certainty to health professionals looking to relocate.
“To manage the longer-term health needs of Territorians, the CLP would reverse the Health Department’s major restructure to combine the Top End and Central Australia health services, which has essentially scrapped local health decision making. In May, the Gunner Government passed legislation to centralise all of our health services, which was a back-peddle on previous reforms undertaken by the CLP Government back in 2014.
“These laws overturned the decentralisation of our health services, which was intended to ensure that decision-making isn’t solely driven from Darwin and to avoid confusion within the Department as well as in the regions and remote communities.
“The Gunner Government clearly doesn’t understand that the Top End and Central Australia are two different regions with different challenges and complexities and we need local decision making to ensure the most appropriate health care is tailored for Territorians whether they live in Karama or Kintore.
“The CLP is focused on combatting the disastrous upward trends of alcohol-related harm and violence, and addressing Labor’s spectacular failures in law and order reform. Our staggering levels of crime, right across the Territory, means we’re struggling to attract people from interstate and our hospitals are struggling to deal with the impact of violent crime and alcohol abuse.
“We need to look beyond the NT’s COVID-19 response to address our longer term health issues, including managing chronic alcohol abuse, and we can’t do that without adequate staffing levels across the Territory – and dedicated facilities for aged care, dementia and mental health outside of our main hospital as a priority,” said Mr Yan.
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