More people in hospital

PUBLIC hospital admissions in the Northern Territory increased rather than decreased during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, bucking the national trend of a drop in visitation, according to new data.

Hospital statistics from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), released earlier this month, show public hospitalisations in the Territory jumped by 2.6 per cent in the 2019-20 financial year, to 181,489, compared to the previous year.

Nationally, all hospitalisations dropped by 2.8 per cent in 2019-20 to about 11.1 million, marking a break with the average increase of 3.3 per cent per year recorded since 2014-15. Public hospital visits fell by 1.7 per cent while a significant 4.5 per cent less people made the trip to a private hospital. Apart from the NT, the only other state or territory where public hospital admissions increased was Queensland, where they jumped by 1.9 per cent, and the ACT where visits rose 0.2 per cent. No private hospital data was available for the NT.