‘World leader’ National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre awarded $55m over three years

Australia’s elite critical response unit has been given a three-year lifeline, amid fears the Darwin-based team were facing a funding cliff.

Executive director of the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre Len Notaras speaks in Darwin. Picture: Jason Walls

The ‘shining light’ of Australia’s elite emergency response unit has been granted a three-year $55m lifeline, after almost falling off a funding cliff.

On Sunday Federal Health Minister Mark Butler confirmed the funding extension to the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre, the specialist emergency medicine hub based in Darwin.

Mr Butler said the funding would allow the NCCTRC to maintain its staff, equipment and resources, and maintain Darwin’s role as a “world leader in disaster and health emergency response”.

“In an uncertain world, we can never be sure about what lies ahead,” he said.

“Thanks to the trauma centre, however, we can be assured that if a major incident occurs here or overseas, affected Australians can get the first rate emergency care they need.”

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

NCCTRC executive director Len Notaras said he was “delighted” by the three-year funding announcement, which offers an average of $1.1m a year boost to the previous funding agreement.

The centre was established in 2004 in the aftermath of the Bali bombing.

Heartbreaking testimony from health care workers at the time described the chaos within the Royal Darwin Hospital as more than 100 critically ill survivors were airlifted into the small regional hospital.

Royal Darwin Hospital staff working to save victims of the Bali bombings between October 14 to October 16, 2002. Picture: National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre

Nearly two decades on, Professor Notaras’s team has been on the frontline of disaster responses across Australia and the wider Asia-Pacific, dispatching its Australian Medical Assistance Teams to deadly explosions, earthquakes, disease outbreaks and volcano eruptions.

The funding commitment comes a year after fears were raised that the trauma centre was about to fall off a federal funding cliff, with no money secured past the 2022-23 financial year.

National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre executive director Len Notaras standing in a temporary hospital that can be established in any crisis scene in 24 hours. Picture: Floss Adams.

A last ditch $17.7m payment was announced in March 2023, extending its operation for just 12 months..

However many were concerned the federal government’s focus on establishing an Australian Centre for Disease Control would come at the expense of the Darwin-based trauma centre.

However the most tragic of circumstances pivoted focus back to the Top End specialist team.

In August 2023, 23 American marines were on-board an Osprey when the aircraft went down over the Tiwi Islands, killing three and injuring eight others.

It was the NCCTRC trauma specialists who provided critical care for the surviving Americans at Royal Darwin Hospital.

It is understood this horrific crash lead to renewed pressure to confirm the Darwin-based centre’s ongoing funding.

Both NT Senator Malarndirri McCarthy and Solomon representative Luke Gosling have celebrated the funding commitment, securing Darwin’s roles as a global leader in clinical and academic leadership in disaster and trauma care.

This latest funding agreement confirms the NCCTRC’s future until July 2027.