Urgent care clinics Northern Territory: Six new bulk-billing services funded by commonwealth

Six new bulk-billing urgent care clinics are expected to be operational in the NT by the end of the calendar year after receiving commonwealth funding to the tune of about $24 million.

AMSANT CEO Dr John Paterson, Labor senator Malarndirri McCarthy, the Assistant Minister for Indigenous Health, and FCD Health Ltd CEO Bernie Cummins. Picture: Alex Treacy

Six new bulk-billing urgent care clinics are expected to be operational in the Northern Territory by the end of the calendar year after receiving commonwealth funding to the tune of about $24 million.

The six new clinics, which feature extended operating hours, bulk-billing and walk-in service, will be located at Ali Curung, Galiwinku, Alyangula, Wurrumiyanga, Lajamanu and Maningrida.

The Wurrumiyanga, Maningrida and Alyangula urgent care clinics began seeing patients on July 1, while the other three clinics are expected to see their first patients by the end of the calendar year.

The six new clinics, which will be co-located with existing health services, join the two previously opened clinics at Palmerston and Alice Springs, which have collectively seen about 19,000 patients since their rollout last year.

Of those 19,000 visits, 91 per cent of patients were diverted from overstretched hospital emergency departments.

The commonwealth is rolling out 29 new urgent care clinics nationwide, taking the total to 87, at an expected cost of $227m.

Maningrida is one of six remote NT townships that will receive a new bulk-billing urgent care clinic. Picture: Natasha Emeck

The Territory’s six new clinics will receive $24m of that pie.

Assistant Minister for Indigenous Health, federal Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, said the new clinics would support the health and wellbeing of the predominantly Indigenous Territorians who populate the six townships.

“To be able to provide more support for First Nations people in particular in our communities, to have the after-hours services, to hopefully reduce [the need for] aeromedical services, is a real boost for the people of the Northern Territory,” Ms McCarthy said.

In 2023, CareFlight conducted 7900 retrievals across the Territory – with Dr Simon Quilty, a physician of longstanding in the Territory, estimating the average cost of aeromedical retrieval from Katherine to Darwin to be $12,000, suggesting an annual operational spend in excess of $100m.

AMSANT CEO Dr John Paterson and FCD Health Ltd CEO Bernie Cummins. Picture: Alex Treacy

“We’d like to certainly see a reduction [in the need for aeromedical retrieval], where appropriate, of patients in our remote and regional areas,” Ms McCarthy said.

“If they don’t need to be [medevaced] to Katherine or Darwin or Alice Springs, if these urgent care clinics can provide that support, then this will go a long way to assisting our communities.”

Ms McCarthy said that despite ongoing concerns over staff vacancies at Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal community controlled health organisations, as previously reported by the NT News, the commonwealth remained confident reinforcements were on the way.

“We committed, when we came into government, to rolling out 500 trainee positions in terms of Indigenous health clinicians,” she said.

“We now have over 300, of those 500, currently in training across the country.

“It will take time, but we’ve come a long way in just 18 months.”

Dr John Paterson, chief executive of the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory, said the more care that could be provided locally, the better for communities.

“We are very confident these models of care will do exactly that,” he said.

Urgent care clinics nationwide have received funding until the end of the 2025–26 financial year, with their long-term future to be assessed after the three-year trial concludes.

Originally published as Urgent care clinics Northern Territory: Six new bulk-billing services funded by commonwealth