The turn around time for ambulances delivering patients to Royal Darwin Hospital has increased by 77 per cent over the past 11 years, with St John Ambulance NT unable to respond to emergencies at times because of the delays, the ABC has reported.

The national broadcaster reported it had obtained data from St John Ambulance that showed the large increase in the time it takes from when an ambulance arrives at RDH with a patient, until it can leave to treat someone else, with the ambulance service provider saying that increase was 77 per cent since 2014.

The ABC reported that in 2024 the average turnaround time had been 46 minutes – with the longest drop off of a patient taking three hours and 30 minutes – while the average time in 2014 had been 26 minutes. It reported the ambulance service sets itself a turnaround goal of 30 minutes.

St John NT director of ambulance services Andrew Thomas was cited as saying the increase in patients being treated at RDH’s emergency department was the cause of the increased ambulance response times.

“When we arrive at the hospital, quite often, we’re able to take the patient actually into the hospital, but the issue is, there’s not an emergency bed for them … so our crews are left there with the patient on a stretcher,” Mr Thomas was quoted as saying.

“At times, we can have all [five] of our ambulances tied up at RDH and then there’s no free ambulance to actually respond.”

While NT Health Department chief executive Marco Briceno was reported as saying the problem of paramedics not being able to hand patients over to the hospital, known as ‘ramping’, was a big problem, saying the emergency department “collapses with increased demand”.

“When we have access blocks and an inability to move patients, it means that to continue to provide care for those patients that were brought in by ambulance, rather than put them in the waiting room, they stay with the ambulance crew that is trained,” he said.

Chief Minister Eva Lawler said the health system was “really, really complex” and she would continue to ask the federal government for more money.

“We also have a chronically ill population in the Northern Territory,” she said.

“Health continues to grow, their financial needs continue to grow.”

Ms Lawler was critical of Dr Briceno of overspending on his budget by $200 million. She said there was an increase to the Health budget of $100 million for next financial year in the NT’s budget but in reality the government allocated the department $100 million less that it was forecast to spend this financial year.

The Health Department has a revised budget figure for this financial year of $2.18 billion, and have been given $2.05 billion in 2024-25.

AMA NT president Robert Parker told the ABC at the time it was “very unfair criticism of the department”.

“I don’t think any CEO at the moment would be able to reign in spending in a department that’s constantly beset by crises, by code yellows, by incredibly high activity levels,” he was quoted as saying.

St John Ambulance is the subject of two different reviews, with Ms Lawler and Health Minister Selena Uibo announcing in late May there would be a “structural” review of the organisation, which followed an “external” clinical review being conducted by NT Health that was only made public in April when the NT Independent was leaked the terms of reference.

A document stated the review followed recent cases where the organisation’s dealings with patients needed to be investigated by NT Health.