Cunningham: Discussions for a new NT hospital are long overdue

The closure of maternity services at Darwin Private Hospital has put the CLP in the unenviable position of having to put its hand out to Canberra for more cash, writes Matt Cunningham.

Royal Darwin Hospital. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

The closure of maternity services at Darwin Private Hospital has put the Finocchiaro Government in the unenviable position of having to put its hand out to Canberra for more cash.

The government wants $35 million to upgrade maternity services infrastructure at the Royal Darwin Hospital.

It’s a reasonable ask, save for the fact that the Federal Government has not long ago helped fund a brand new hospital about 20 minutes up the road with a maternity ward that has never seen a baby born.

But the Palmerston Regional Hospital is not an option for Territory mums, even if most of them live in the suburbs immediately surrounding the facility.

There are not the staff, nor have there ever been, to adequately operate two full-service hospitals in the Top End.

Palmerston Regional Hospital. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

As the NT Government’s recent decision regarding the Darwin Art Gallery at State Square reminded us, we have an uncanny knack of building expensive things we have no capacity to operate.

Town planners often speak of the need to build revenue-generating infrastructure.

In the NT, we specialise in revenue-draining infrastructure.

The art gallery now sits alongside the Palmerston hospital, the shadeless Cavenagh St shade structure and the Nightcliff Police Station as shiny new things that cost us a bomb and don’t really work.

The great shame about these pet projects, promised to win votes during short-term election cycles, is they are literally robbing us of the funding required to build the infrastructure we actually need.

Consider the $250 million committed 15 years ago for the Palmerston Regional Hospital.

Add to that the $60 million in added annual operating costs (never budgeted for) we’ve been paying since it opened in 2017.

We’re already north of $700 million, which if we hadn’t already spent it, would go a long way towards funding what we really need; a new, full-service tertiary hospital.

Royal Darwin Hospital is well past its use-by date.

You only have to look at the snow shutters that cover the windows to know this facility was never really fit-for-purpose.

Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

And as the health demands of this jurisdiction continue to rise, the licks of paint can no longer cover the inadequacy of the building our dedicated health professionals are forced to work from every day.

AMA NT president John Zorbas laid the dire state of our hospital bare this week, when he revealed the facility was in a permanent state of access block, where a decision is made to admit an inpatient, but it takes longer than eight hours for that patient to arrive in the relevant ward.

“This is the proof that RDH doesn’t have the beds it needs to provide the care that Territorians need,” he said.

When the Palmerston Regional Hospital was opened we were told it would help alleviate pressure at RDH.

Many of those who work in the system say it has actually made the problem worse, spreading frontline staff across two campuses, when only one can realistically provide all the acute services.

Nightcliff Police Station generic. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

There will no doubt be attempts to fix the bed shortages at RDH by tacking on a bit here and moving a bit there.

But these deckchairs can only be shuffled so many times before the ship hits the iceberg.

The AMA has called on the NT and federal governments to “step up to the task of appropriately funding healthcare in the NT”.

Given the appalling state of RDH, it’s hard to believe no government has even floated a plan for a new Darwin hospital.

The discussion should have started a decade ago about what a new hospital would look like, how much it would cost and where it should go.

Perhaps it could be built in Berrimah, close to Palmerston and the northern suburbs, and the Palmerston hospital could be repurposed?

The NT Government clearly can’t afford a new hospital, but it should make the case to Canberra that such a facility is desperately overdue.

If it cost $3 billion that would still be less than half of what the Federal Government pledged to upgrade one Queensland highway before the May election.

But maybe our governments have avoided making this request, lest we be asked where all of our money has gone.

Originally published as Cunningham: Discussions for a new NT hospital are long overdue