More doctors to arrive in NT after Greg Hunt reveals plans to ship 2000 healthcare workers to Australia

More than a dozen doctors will be sent to the Territory as part of a commonwealth scheme to ship 2000 healthcare professionals from overseas to bolster Australian hospitals.

FIFTEEN doctors will be sent to the Territory as part of a Department of Health scheme to ship 2000 healthcare professionals from overseas to bolster Australian hospitals.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt announced on Saturday the commonwealth is finalising a “one-off” plan to bring the additional nurses and doctors into the country over the next six months.

A spokesman for NT Health Minister Natasha Fyles said the Territory would gain an additional 15 doctors from the scheme to help ease the NT’s healthcare crisis, but could not provide a timeframe for their arrival.

“The commonwealth is committed to it and the states are working constructively with us on it,” Mr Hunt told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

People line up in their cars to be get a Covid-19 test. Picture: David Crosling

Mr Hunt said the influx of workers would come mainly from Britain, Ireland and other countries where medical and nursing qualifications are recognised as equivalent by Australian regulators.

Doctors and nurses who had already applied to come to Australia will be able to leapfrog travel restrictions so that they can arrive sooner and take up critical hospital jobs in mostly outer suburban and regional hospitals and GP clinics, Mr Hunt said.

It comes as the Territory faces a hospital crisis with the Royal Darwin Hospital last month declaring its fourth Code Yellow in a year.