Almost one third of RDH beds set aside for nursing home care

PEOPLE requiring a bed in a nursing home are being forced to live at Royal Darwin Hospital as there is not enough aged care facilities in the NT

Almost a third of beds at RDH are being used by people who require nursing home care as there aren’t enough dedicated nursing home facilities in the NT.

PEOPLE requiring a bed in a nursing home are being forced to live at Royal Darwin Hospital as there is not enough aged care facilities in the NT.

Almost one third of beds at RDH are being occupied by people who require nursing home care.

Australian Medical Association NT president Dr Robert Parker said the impact of the 80 to 100 patients in the 340-bed hospital had put a huge strain on the health system.

“It’s contributed to the current situation where we are escalating to codes yellows where we haven’t got beds to put people in,” Dr Parker said.

He said a solution to place people from the hospital into aged care needed to be looked at urgently.

“Until we can work out a solution and we can look after those individuals in the way they require it is going to put more pressure on the hospital,” he said. He said more beds needed to be made available in aged care facilities.

Health Minister Natasha Fyles said the limited aged care capacity in the NT posed a challenge.

“We are working in partnership with the Commonwealth Government on aged care reform in the Northern Territory,” she said.

“The latest Aged Care Approvals Round was announced on 30 July 2021 and included 60 residential aged care beds.”

However on Mix 104.9 on Thursday federal Minister David Littleproud said the health crisis in Darwin lay with the NT government.

The issue of aged care falls under the Commonwealth Government.

“Well they are long standing arrangements that we have with states and territories around aged care, states and territories are remunerated for them, they’re long standing arrangements there’s nothing new in there that’s business as usual,” he said.

He said the health crisis was down to managing funding properly.

“The money’s there it’s been paid to the Northern Territory Government it’s just how they choose to spend it and unfortunately they haven’t made those decisions to spend it on a health system to keep up to the capacity,” he said.