Royal Darwin Hospital out of overcrowding crisis as coronavirus funding frees up beds

OVERCROWDING at the Royal Darwin Hospital has all but disappeared during the coronavirus crisis thanks to additional health funding, but unions are worried it will return to high rates when the pandemic is over.

Overcrowding at the Royal Darwin Hospital has all but disappeared during the coronavirus crisis, thanks to additional health funding, but unions are worried it will return to high rates when the pandemic is over. Picture: Patrina Malone

OVERCROWDING at the Royal Darwin Hospital has all but disappeared during the coronavirus crisis, thanks to additional health funding, but unions are worried it will return to high rates when the pandemic is over.

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) has praised the NT Government’s response to COVID-19 of freeing up beds in the usually overcrowded Royal Darwin Hospital.

Acting Secretary of the ANMF NT branch, Cath Hatcher, said the Royal Darwin Hospital had been operating at about 130 per cent capacity for years before funding from the Territory and Federal Governments in response to the pandemic meant this finally changed.

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“They have reopened a ward of 32 beds at Darwin and opened a new ward of 20 beds at Palmerston,” Ms Hatcher said.

“The crisis in the RDH, of being at 130, 140 per cent (capacity) has been going on for the last two or three years … and now it’s fantastic.

“(But), they only have the ability because the federal and local government have been putting the money out there.

“Once this has quietened down, are we going to have the money to keep those extra wards open or are we going to be ramped up again to 130 per cent again?”

Ms Hatcher said most hospitals around the country usually operated at about 90 per cent capacity and then fluctuated from there, but that the RDH was often overcrowded because people from all over the Territory were treated there.

“Apart from Palmerston now, there is nowhere else to put public patients,” she said.

“The cut-off boundary is just south of Katherine right across to the border and it’s not like Adelaide or Brisbane where there are several public hospitals.

“There’s been maybe 40 patients in emergency departments waiting on wards upstairs.

“There’s never any empty beds. Never.”

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NT Health Minister Natasha Fyles would not commit to continuing to keeping the extra beds available, saying comparing during pandemic requirements and after-pandemic requirements was not comparing “apples to apples”.

She said the Government would reassess the health system once the COVID-19 pandemic was over.

“Definitely at the end of this we’ll assess what worked and what didn’t,” Ms Fyles said.