Recently the Northern Territory opened a new hospital in the Darwin region, located in the city of Palmerston. To most residents this was seen as a positive move towards relieving waiting times for health care currently experienced at Royal Darwin Hospital, the new Palmerston Regional Hospital is quite a distance from Darwin but better for servicing residents in the Palmerston region.

However…

What the residents of Darwin never expected is that services would be shut down at Royal Darwin Hospital and be forced to travel long distances to Palmerston Regional Hospital. It should be noted that Darwin has a poor public bus service, one that people try to avoid particularly when in poor health.

Let’s look at what has changed as an example:

Royal Darwin Hospital

• Close proximity to Darwin residents
• Pre-Theater appointment duration less than 1 hour plus about 30 minutes travel.
• Not too expensive to catch a taxi from Darwin suburbs

Palmerston Regional Hospital

• Have to travel to another city
• Pre-Theater appointment duration more than two hours waiting time with only a handful of patients  and over 1.5 hours travel time and multiple buses.
• Expensive for residents to catch taxis.

Darwin has very poor infrastructure, high rents, high cost of living, poor public transport and a government that supports fracking. The government also adopts policy that impacts everyone such as alcohol bans and pricing where a few offenders impacts everyone. It should be noted that there is no harmonisation of laws with other states, tenancy laws for example are outdated and can cause hardship for families.

The Northern Territory Government continues to try to encourage people to move to the Territory, but has never considered what people need to build on needs of existing and new residents. The new Palmerston Regional Hospital and closure of services at Royal Darwin Hospital is a very good example of serious failure for the region.

The Northern Territory will continue to see people (many long term residents) leave the NT unless they improve “Living in the NT”

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