$19.6M HEALTH OVERTIME BILL
Clinical staff at NT hospitals work extra hours
OVERTIME pay for clinical staff across the Territory’s six public hospitals exceeded $19m last financial year.
The sizeable bill is a slight improvement on the 2018-19 financial year, despite NT Health mobilising to manage the coronavirus pandemic.
NT Health revealed, in a question on notice asked during senate estimates, that clinical staff overtime costs had totalled $19.58m in 2019-20.
The largest chunk of overtime costs was incurred at Royal Darwin Hospital ($11.17m), followed by Alice Springs Hospital ($5.72m) and Palmerston Regional Hospital ($1.03m).
But an NT Health spokeswoman pointed out the department’s coronavirus-era overtime bill came in lower than 2018-19, when clinical staff clocked up $20.67m worth of extra hours.
NT Health says that how much it spends on overtime is affected by unexpected increases in demand that require more staff than normal, fluctuations in out-of-hours emergency needs, or when hospitals are unable to tap into locums to cover critical vacancies.
“NT Health continues to closely scrutinise overtime usage from both an expenditure perspective and a staff fatigue management perspective,” the spokeswoman said.
Meanwhile, the NT government has brought in recruitment firm Davidson to find a new NT Health chief executive to replace outgoing department boss Catherine Stoddart.
Professor Stoddart resigned in December, saying she planned to return to Western Australia to be close to her family.
The replacement for Professor Stoddart, who is due to finish up by the beginning of February, will have to take on a major internal restructure of the department - a huge task that will involve the integration of Central Australia Health Service, Top End Health Service and NT Health into one mega-entity.
NT Health has argued the restructure will “strengthen the resilience and sustainability of the health system”.
Proposed amendments to the Health Services Act also are planned for March 2021, to be in effect by July.