The ongoing Code Yellow crisis at Royal Darwin and Palmerston hospitals shows a significant failure in the health system with conditions on the verge of a “health disaster”, the union representing the NT’s nurses and midwives says, which was met with a statement from the acting head of NT Health thanking Territorians for their “patience” and pledging to throw “all of our resources and energy” into alleviating the current situation.
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation NT members are calling for urgent action by the NT Government to fix the problems, including expediting the opening of the new hospital ward at the RDH as quickly and safely as possible, while warning the last Code Yellow should not have been lifted as the system does not have capacity to deal with current demand.
“This is no longer simply hospital overcrowding. It is a health capacity crisis — and it requires an urgent system-wide response before a major incident exposes just how fragile the situation has become,” ANMF branch secretary Heidi Crisp said in a statement.
“Another member described the current situation as the worst capacity crisis they had experienced: further stating they don’t think the public know how close we are to a health disaster in the Top End.”
The union also called for faster pathways for aged care and supported accommodation to ensure that patients who no longer need acute hospital care can be discharged. The need to urgently identify further solutions to alleviate pressure on the healthcare system is desperately needed, they added.
In one recent situation, a nurse reported that a septic patient was relocated from the resuscitation area and placed in a double-bunked setting in the “majors area” without receiving proper treatment. Several hours later, when the staff member completed their shift, they noted that the patient still had not been attended to.
“For a seriously unwell patient, delays of this magnitude are deeply concerning and demonstrate the pressure the hospital is under,” Ms Crisp said.
“Nurses and midwives are working in overcrowded clinical areas, caring for increasingly complex and unwell patients while trying to manage a system that simply does not have enough capacity.
“This is the sixth Code Yellow this year. This system is not coping.”
She added many members have expressed concern that the last Code Yellow should not have ended.
Key concerns raised by the union include severe bed shortages that have led to overcrowded emergency departments, worsened by blockages in aged care, forcing elderly patients to occupy acute beds.
Additionally, nurses and midwives are experiencing exhaustion due to unsafe workloads, often working double shifts, which heightens the risk of burnout and errors, the union said.
The union added that frequent activation of Code Yellows has also become a concerning norm rather than a rare occurrence.
NT Health acting chief executive Susan Bowden responded to the nurse’s warning in a rare Thursday night public statement, saying the department was “throwing all of our resources and energy into this”.
She claimed the department has undertaken “a range of measures to increase capacity” including “reconfiguring areas of the hospitals, opening as many beds as possible, postponing elective surgeries and working to divert our aged care patients”.
But the union had implied those measures were not working and more needed to be done.
Ms Bowden said the department was currently “investigating” how to bring the new 32-bed ward into use earlier than originally planned.
She added she wanted to thank health staff for their “commitment to caring for Territorians”, stating staff are “valued and respected and we are all grateful for the work you do”.
“We know there are long wait times in the Emergency Department at the moment, so I encourage everyone in our community to familiarise themselves with the different ways to access healthcare services, so you are getting the right care at the right time and place,” Ms Bowden said.
“The Palmerston Urgent Care Clinic and the Darwin Urgent Care Clinic are open from 8am to 10pm, 7 days a week, accept walk-in care, with no appointments necessary and fully bulk-bill.
“The Palmerston Urgent Care Clinic is located at 3 Gurd Street, Farrar. The Darwin Urgent Care Clinic is located at 4/8 Osgood Drive, Eaton.
“If you are unsure of how to manage your illness or injury, visit www.healthdirect.gov.au or call Healthdirect for free on 1800 022 222.”
“EMERGENCY” . . . Means? On the verge of a health disaster Should territorians just yawn?
“It is a health capacity crisis – and it requires an urgent system-wide response before a major incident exposes just how fragile the situation has become”.
Is that what the territory government is waiting for?
Clearly our Northern Territory Government has fallen short of TERRITORIAN NEEDS whilst awaiting Climate “Threat” and the ever certainty of a climatic Wet Season.
Question:
What is that army of Administration staff at Manunda Building and at RDH doing all day? Do the Admin staff outnumber the
actual frontline medical staff 4 to 1?
Less Admin staff, more frontline medical staff!
Ohh and a Medical IT System that works would be great also!
We recently waited 11 and a half hours in emergency with a family member who had been diagnosed by a local health centre with severe pneumonia and told to present at Emergency at Royal Darwin Hospital.
In such circumstances a patronising thank- you for patience by a senior bureaucrat becomes unreasonable and absurd.
Perhaps such an inappropriate comment underscores the current disasters facing Territory Health.
As be can be seen in the field of Aboriginal development, any amount of resources can be ‘thrown at the problems’, but if there is little to no understanding of the reasons for the main problems, nothing changes and often worsens.Often the money is completely misdirected and wasted.
How to attract and retain highly skilled clinical staff continues to be the main challenge with little evidence of innovative and creative issues put forward to overcome this chronic challenge.
This places unreasonable, highly challenging and often dangerous demands on existing clinical staff.
The dedication, skill, resilience and tenacity of staff placed in this position by governance failures is amazing to behold and something I suggest politicians and bureaucrats should become far more familiar with.
The fact that they don’t often leads even the most dedicated clinician to finally admit they have had enough and are forced to leave.