Carpentaria responds to huge demand for services in Alice Springs

A Territory health service provider has responded to huge demand by opening a permanent Alice Springs office. Its next challenge is recruitment. Read how it plans to expand services here.

An allied health services provider has received a land grant for Central Australian disability accomodation as well as a new permanent office space, its next challenge is staffing it.

Carpentaria chief executive officer Annie Rily said it had been providing allied healthcare services to Alice Springs on a fly-in fly-out basis since 2019, with increasing demand leading to the opening of its new office space on Wednesday.

“It’s really just expanded so quickly that we didn’t think it was right to continue as a fly in fly out service when we have that level of case load so we wanted to establish an office here,” she said.

“There are a lot of different services here but people are really crying out for a choice in quality services.

Carpentaria CEO Annie Rily at the opening of the new Carpentaria office in Alice Springs.

“The other thing people are crying out for is having services that have that local Northern Territory knowledge, and that’s what we bring to Alice Springs.

“We are working very collaboratively with other service providers, because when you’ve got thin services on the ground it’s really, really important that service providers work together.”

She said it was currently providing visiting speech pathology and occupational therapy services to more than 100 children and adults.

The new office space will initially have two permanent staff, with the view to recruit more permanent staff to eventually provide services such as physiotherapy and psychology, as well as establish accommodation services.

Ms Rily said the office would initially provide services to urban Alice Springs, with hopes of expanding this to remote communities eventually.

She said access to services in remote areas were one of the main challenges faced by those in Central Australia.

The new Carpentaria office on Parsons St in Alice Springs.

“That’s a challenge we would look at overcoming by being able to go out and visit people in the community, and in the future to be able to help people access short-term accommodation so they can access services in a more intensive way,” she said.

She said Carpentaria’s main challenge in expanding services was recruitment.

“Our challenge is recruitment, but we’ll be here for the long term, so we’ll keeping working on it,” she said.

“Once we get a couple of people, we’ve got two people in the office permanently and four visiting regularly, that will then start to attract other allied health professionals as well.”

It comes after the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress demanded urgent action on healthcare worker shortages in March, stating it was operating with about a third less staff than usual.

Disabilities Minister Ngaree Ah Kit officially opened the Alice Springs Carpentaria office, announcing the service had received a land grant to built specialist disability accommodation in Alice Springs.

The Carpentaria permanent office was officially opened by Disabilities Minister Ngaree Ah Kit on Wednesday.

In the opening, Ms Ah Kit announced Carpentaria had been awarded a land grant for a parcel of land in Gillen to develop specialist disability accommodation in Alice Springs.

“The eventual dwelling will be able to accommodate up to three people, Carpentaria will provide supported independent living services to people living in those houses, which helps tenants to live as independently as possible in the community,” she said.

“It’s great to see more disability housing become available in Central Australia.”

Originally published as Carpentaria responds to huge demand for services in Alice Springs