Danila Dilba reduces services across Darwin

A health service provider has closed some of its clinics until further notice in an effort to prevent staff shortages and the spread of Covid among the vulnerable.

UPDATE: Danila Dilba has moved to the “outbreak phase” of their pandemic plan.

The final phase of their Covid-19 plan means the Fannie Bay men’s clinic, Humpty Doo clinic, Rapid Creek clinic and the main Palmerston Clinic will remain closed until further notice.

Core services will be offered at the remaining clinics but where appropriate some clients will be able to access telehealth services.

Danila Dilba chief executive Rob McPhee said the call was made last week to implement the plans.

“We move into our preparation stage because our world as we know it is going to look very different in the coming weeks and months,” he said.

“We have reduced our footprint…the main reason we do that is to try and minimise the spread of Covid with our staff and clients.”

However, he assured clients when they required face-to-face services those would be available.

Mr McPhee said the small outbreak in Bagot Community had also taught the organisation a lot.

“The response by government to transfer that person from community took a number of days and that created anxiety,” he said.

“We need one point of contact on community so we can get reliable information to everyone.”

Even though swabbing is an NT Health responsibility Danila Dilba ended up swabbing residents.

“Testing is essentially a government responsibility, but because the community was so anxious, we brought in eight staff to swab 163 close contacts.”

The Bagot Community outbreak Mr McPhee highlighted how borders had been opened too soon and the Territory was overall underprepared for the rising cases.

However, Danila Dilba had a strong plan which at its core focused on the needs of vulnerable communities in the Greater Darwin area.

EARLIER: ABORIGINAL health services have closed their doors across the Territory, leaving many communities without a health practitioner for hundreds of kilometres.

Darwin-based Danila Dilba posted to social media on Monday night announcing the Fannie Bay men’s clinic, Humpty Doo clinic, Rapid Creek clinic and the main Palmerston Clinic will remain closed until further notice.

The changes are to help minimise exposure and redeploy staff to telehealth appointments as case numbers in Darwin continue grow.

“We’re facing extremely challenging times as we transition to living with Covid-19 in our community and we’re understandably seeing more demand than ever before,” the statement read.

“We are working hard to ensure that our community and staff are safe, while continuing to provide important primary health care services to our mob.”

In Katherine, some Aboriginal health clinics shut or switched to reduced operating hours between Christmas and New Year’s due to staff shortages.

Wurli-Wurlinjang Aboriginal Health Service, Sunrise Aboriginal Health Organisation and Miwatj Health Aboriginal Corporation were among the clinics affected.

The services operate across the Top End and recorded several cases of Covid-19 during the Christmas period, causing them to be stretched beyond their general primary care services while also short staffed.

In addition, at least 10 remote health clinics operated by NT Health were shut for weeks due to chronic staff shortages.

Several of the clinics were in the Barkly region, which was grappling with new daily Covid-19 cases among a largely unvaccinated population.

In a statement to the NT News in December, an NT Health spokesman said clinics including Laramba, Willowra, Canteen Creek, Titjikala, Kings Canyon, Haasts Bluff, Yuelamu, Engawala, Epenarra and Imanpa were closed over the holidays.

EARLIER: ABORIGINAL leaders have criticised the Northern Territory government’s slow response to Covid-19 in remote communities, as case numbers grew to 15 in Yuendumu and Yuelamu in the 24 hours to 8pm on Sunday.

The NT News understands results took more than 48 hours to be returned from when the first case was recorded.

The rise in cases led Chief Minister Michael Gunner to extend the lockout for both towns until Friday.

According to NT government data for Yuendumu, only 41 per cent of the population over the age of 16 has had two vaccinations, while Yuelamu is slightly higher with just 58 per cent.

However, with the introduction of vaccinations for children aged 5 to 11 those figures reduce to 33 per cent and 46 per cent respectively, indicating children in remote communities contribute to a high proportion of the population.

Almost half the residents in Yuendumu live in overcrowding and about 20 per cent do so in Yuelamu.

Mr Gunner said of 22 close contacts identified by the Health Department, 10 returned positive Covid tests.

AMSANT chief executive John Paterson said the government’s response to positive Covid-19 cases in communities had drastically changed, but he had no idea why.

“We’ve got Covid cropping up in communities with low vaccination rates all over the Territory and some are waiting days for swabs to be delivered,” he said.

“Just two months ago rapid response teams were deployed at all times of the night and day to help trace, swab and vaccinate our people.”

Mr Paterson said he had asked to see the government’s “Covid strategy” but to date nothing had be provided.

A spokesman for Sunrise Aboriginal Health Organisation said their requests for a surge workforce had been denied by the federal and Territory governments.

As a result a number of clinics were forced to close or operate on reduced hours.

“We are expected to test, trace, swab, vaccinate and manage Covid in addition to normal primary care but no extra support has been given,” the spokesman said.

“We have also had to start rationing our swabs to use only on people who are symptomatic … what do we do if our communities get Covid?”

Health Minister Natasha Fyles said every community in the Northern Territory had a pandemic response plan.

“The public health measures we have in place are based on the advice of our health experts,” Ms Fyles said.

“We always work closely with our ACCHO partners and consider their requests for support.”

Currently many Aboriginal health clinics are closed or on reduced hours due to staff shortages.

In Jabiru supply of the child vaccine has still not arrived.

NT Health and ACCHO run clinics have reported having to ration PCR tests in addition to having minimal or no supply of rapid antigen tests (RATs).