NT Health undertaking major internal restructure to ‘integrate’ services

A major internal restructure of NT Health will be in place as early as July next year, but the Health Minister is adamant the move isn’t a “centralisation” of services

A MAJOR internal restructure of NT Health will be in place as early as July next year, but the Health Minister is adamant the move isn’t a “centralisation” of services that will disadvantage regional Territorians.

Health Minister Natasha Fyles, during budget estimates on Wednesday, confirmed work was underway to “integrate” Central Australia Health Service, Top End Health Service and NT Health into one mega-entity.

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The idea, borne out of the need to move rapidly during COVID-19, is to create a system-wide governance and decision making system with “clear lines of accountability”.

According to the government the restructure won’t bring about forced redundancies.

Ms Fyles said the restructure would make sharing expertise easier, like being able to bring Alice Springs specialists up to the Top End when needed or sending clinicians from Darwin to Nhulunbuy so people in community can receive care closer to home.

But the Opposition and Independent Araluen MLA Robyn Lambley are sceptical that “integration” by any other name is “centralisation” that could impact the regions.

“Isn’t this just about Darwin and wanting to control the rest of the Northern Territory … (by) centralising services in Darwin? We’ve seen this before Minister, history repeating itself,” Ms Lambley said.

Ms Fyles said this was “absolutely not” the case.

An NT Health spokeswoman said the restructure would “strengthen the resilience and sustainability of the health system”.

Proposed amendments to the Health Services Act are planned for March 2021 and be in effect by July.

“Our collective and continued response to the global COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted opportunities for our health system to be better engaged, integrated, flexible and agile,” the spokeswoman said.

“We want to learn from our experiences and take this opportunity to create a better health system.

“This is not an efficiency activity, therefore no forced redundancies will occur as a result of this process.”