NT Health Minister warns ‘flights must not create a burden on the health system’

The issue of repatriated Australians from India coming to Darwin is one of hospital and health system capacity, says NT Health Minister Natasha Fyles.

HEALTH Minister Natasha Fyles says the issue of repatriated Australians from India coming to Darwin is one of hospital and health system capacity.

“We need — in managing these flights back into Australia — to make sure we do not create a burden on the health system here in the Territory,” Ms Fyles said.

“We have the Howard Springs facility and we have worked around how that operates and as we saw when we reached very high numbers, the Federal Government worked with us to stop those flights so we could manage it.

“There have been a number of conversations around India because the infection rate of the India flights of more than 15 per cent triggered the deferral of those flights just a couple of weeks ago. In terms of taking the flights from India we would have to look at the rates of infection and the numbers we could manage, not so much for the Howard Springs facility, but the health system behind it.

“In terms of quarantine, we can care for a small number (of cases) at Royal Darwin Hospital, but if we were starting to care for larger numbersthere is repatriation to interstate hospitals as part of the plan.”

Ms Fyles said the National Critical Care and Response Unit could also be called in to help at the Howard Springs facility.

“We have a national partner agreement to run the facility and part of that agreement is that we work together to make sure the Northern Territory can safely manage the facility and the staffing and running of it. It is (that) when you see high COVID case numbers, ‘what’s the contingencies for that and being able to manage those people who become potentially very unwell?’.”

At one point, the Northern Territory’s health system was dealing with 55 active cases of COVID-19 at once, more than a third of the NT’s total cases since the pandemic began.

Active cases at Howard Springs have since fallen to 35.

Mr Gunner on Tuesday said the Territory’s ability to cope with COVID-19 cases wasn’t unlimited, and had previously pushed for more time to get the number of active infections down. Indian repatriation flights were initially suspended because of concerns about skyrocketing cases within the Howard Springs quarantine facility, something Ms Fyles confirmed.

Originally published as NT Health Minister warns ‘flights must not create a burden on the health system’