Aaron Bunch Journalist with Australian Associated Press | Collection of published work | + 61 484 008 119 | abunch@aap.com.au
NT hospital capacity concerns ease
The Northern Territory’s health service has lifted a code yellow alert in response to patient capacity issues at Darwin hospitals.
August 30, 2022
A code yellow alert in response to patient capacity issues at Royal Darwin and Palmerston Hospitals has been lifted.
NT Health says elective surgery restrictions will be eased from Tuesday but some limitations will remain and capacity will be monitored.
“Patients whose surgery was deferred as a result of the code yellow will be contacted with a new surgery date as soon as possible,” a spokesman said on Tuesday.
A code yellow enacts a number of practices to allow the hospital to closely manage the peak until pressures ease.
It follows a code brown alert on August 21 in response to a warehouse fire that destroyed millions of dollars worth of medical supplies.
The blaze left hospitals in Darwin, Katherine and Palmerston with about three days’ worth of some items, including theatre consumables, disposable sheets and gloves.
Some emergency equipment was also lost but the warehouse, which has been leased by the government for the past four years, was not used to store any drugs or other pharmaceutical products.
NT Health called the code brown alert soon after the fire to spark a system-wide response, which also included assessments of what supplies were available at other sites and what might need to be sourced from interstate.
That was downgraded to a code yellow on August 23.