More Code Yellows expected at RDH
No quick fix for stretched Royal Darwin Hospital
ROYAL Darwin Hospital (RDH) will experience further Code Yellows in coming months because of chronic understaffing, experts have warned. The RDH has been thrown into four Code Yellows since the start of this year, prompting urgent calls for more staff to be recruited to ease the burden. Code Yellow declarations mean non-essential surgeries are cancelled so staff can be prioritised to hospital departments suffering under pressure. The most recent Code Yellow was declared for a 24-hour period on September 29, the result of an influx of aged care and disability patients. Australian Nursing and Midwifery NT branch secretary Cath Hatcher said further declarations were inevitable, despite the government vowing to hire more nurses in coming months.
“I do think (there will be more), until all the aged care/ NDIS-type disability patients are out,” Ms Hatcher said.
“I know Regis is taking 21ish patients over the next few weeks – that will be a big help.
“But I do think that we need to still alleviate the rest of the nearly 40 that will be left there … that still needs to go to a proper facility.”
ROYAL Darwin Hospital will experience further code yellows in coming months because of chronic understaffing, experts have warned.
The RDH has been thrown into four code yellows since the start of this year, prompting urgent calls for more staff to be recruited to ease the burden.
Code yellow declarations mean non-essential surgeries are cancelled so staff can be prioritised to hospital departments suffering under pressure.
The most recent one was declared for a 24-hour period on September 29, and was the result of an influx of aged care and disability patients.
Australian Nursing and Midwifery NT branch secretary Cath Hatcher said further declarations were inevitable, despite the government vowing to hire more nurses in coming months.
“I do think (there will be more), until all the aged care/ NDIS-type disability patients are out,” Ms Hatcher said.
“I know Regis is taking 21ish patients over the next few weeks – that will be a big help.
“But I do think that we need to still alleviate the rest of the nearly 40 that will be left there . . . that still need to go to a proper facility.”
The NT government has said in recent weeks it had secured funding from the commonwealth to build a new aged-care facility.
Australian Medical Association NT president Robert Parker also said further code yellows were inevitable due to decades of “chronic underfunding” from successive governments.
Dr Parker said the situation was most critical in mental health.
The NT government is building a new ward to house mental health patients.
A lack of staff, particularly nurses, was also increasing chances of a code yellow within Darwin’s hospital system.
“Staffing shortages, particularly mental health nurses, and other nursing staff – the potential to get nurses from overseas quite easily, because of staff shortages, is no longer there because of the Covid quarantine problems,” Dr Parker said.
NT Health Minister Natasha Fyles and NT Health were contacted for comment.
Ms Fyles last week revealed NT Health would recruit 34 more graduate nurses in a bid to ease staffing shortages.
It followed Palmerston Regional Hospital being forced to close a third of its emergency beds, in a bid to ease staffing shortages at the RDH.
A review is now being undertaken into PRH, as part of an NT Health “program of continuous improvement”.
The extra nursing staff has been welcomed, but Ms Hatcher on Friday expressed concern about whether the NT was recruiting enough experienced nurses trained in emergency and ICU care.
Nurse shortages had been exacerbated by a lack of overseas recruitment during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as many nurses leaving to take up jobs at the Howard Springs quarantine camp.