BERNIE CUMMINS, CEO, PALMERSTON MEDICARE URGENT CARE CLINIC: I’m Bernie Cummins, I'm the CEO of FCD Health, which operates the Palmerston GP Super Clinic as well as the Palmerston Medicare Urgent Care Clinic. Since we've been open in October 2023, we have seen almost 11,000 patients, of which 91 per cent received care and treatment from our doctors and nurses here at the Urgent Care Clinic and returned home, with only 5 per cent that need to go to hospital. That means that 11,000 people have not needed to attend the ED at the Palmerston Regional Hospital, as well as the Royal Darwin Hospital. We're able to provide care for a wide range of patients, and it's a really important part of the health infrastructure here in the Top End. Patients receive a full, fully bulk billed service, that's free of charge and are able to receive care from, you know, stitches through to broken arms, as well as things like minor burns. Patients often come to us with an acute illness. They can wait up to 90 minutes on average. They stay with us for about 20 minutes and then are able to return home to the care of their families and loved ones without needing to travel to hospital and an ED.
MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY, ASSISTANT MINISTER: Thanks, Bernie. Good morning. It's just wonderful to be here with Bernie and also with John Paterson, the CEO of the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance NT. Today, the Commonwealth is announcing six new Urgent Care Clinics across the Northern Territory. We've just heard from Bernie in terms of the Palmerston Urgent Care Clinic and how that's going. We know that Alice Springs Urgent Care Clinic is doing well. And while you've had 11,000 people here at the Urgent Care Clinic, in total you’ve actually had 19,000 between Alice and Palmerston.
So what we’re announcing today is there are going to be 29 more Urgent Care Clinics across the country, and in the Northern Territory we will see an additional six. And I do thank the Northern Territory Government and AMSANT for the work they’ve done in identifying these locations. So the locations that we currently have which started on 1 July is Galiwin’ku - sorry, is Alyangula, the Tiwis with Wurrumiyanga. And so they started on 1 July, and then later on this year, we'll see some additional ones with Galiwin'ku, with Lajamanu, with Ali Curung. So we know that these Urgent Care Clinics are quite important to be able to transition from their current status, to be able to provide more support for First Nations people in particular in our communities, to have the after-hours service to hopefully reduce the aeromedical services. So this is a real boost for the people of the Northern Territory.
JOURNALIST: Can I just quickly ask, if you're aware, what's the average cost of an aeromedical retrieval in the Territory?
MCCARTHY: I's certainly in the millions. I would have to get that figure for you. We know that if I think of the communities that I have to go to, aeromedical retrieval is a very common- if not daily, if not twice daily in some circumstances. So the figure is incredibly high. And I'd certainly suggest that you get that from the Northern Territory Government, but we do know it's well into the millions. And we'd like to certainly see a reduction where appropriate, obviously, in terms of the care of patients in our remote and regional areas. If they don't need to be air-vacced to Katherine or to Darwin or to Alice Springs, if these Urgent Care Clinics can provide that support, then this will go a long way to assisting our communities.
JONH PATERSON, CEO, ABORIGINAL MEDICAL SERVICES ALLIANCE, NORTHERN TERRITORY: John Paterson Chief Executive, Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance, Northern Territory. Let me first of all thank the Albanese Government, and in particular, our Assistant Minister for Aboriginal Health, our Senator McCarthy, for this very important investment and funding that's going to add value to already existing overstretched clinics, particularly in the remote locations that the Minister has alluded to. This will allow after-hour care in those remote clinics that have been successful in becoming the Urgent Care Clinics. It’ll also provide and hopefully reduce the medivac arrangements that may require patients to be treated locally with the specialist care that these clinics will provide, and reduce some of those strains on the hospitals as well. So the more we can do local communities, the better. And we are very confident that these models of care will do exactly that. It’ll also reduce and provide the ongoing care for our very elderly patients that may need those additional healthcare after-hours in their local communities with their families present.
MCCARTHY: We’re happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: How much funding is going towards getting these clinics up and running?
MCCARTHY: Overall it’s 227 million, with the 29 Urgent Care Clinics across the country. Here in the Northern Territory they will roughly be around 24 million, in terms of the six sites, plus the existing ones as well in terms of Palmerston and Alice Springs.
JOURNALIST: How long is the funding for? Is it three to four years?
MCCARTHY:The funding is determined by a couple of things. Firstly, with the ones in transition at the moment, it is part of a pilot that has existed for a couple of years. So we want to see that pilot continue, and that’s with all three that began on 1 July – Maningrida,Alyangula, and Wurrumiyanga. So we want to see that continue at least untill the end of next year, and obviously through to the budget process. And of course with the other three, they will start later this year, and naturally we will want, we would want to see them go for a couple of years.
JOURNALIST: And the other three, sorry, are Ali Curung …
MCCARTHY: Ali Curung, Lajamanu and Galiwin'ku, Elcho Island is the other name for it.
JOURNALIST: We hear from hospitals that a lot of the presentations that they're getting are a result of violence or domestic violence.
MCCARTHY: Yeah.
JOURNALIST: Are these urgent clinics equipped to deal with that sort of broader, you know …
MCCARTHY: Need …
JOURNALIST: ...beyond just the immediate medical care?
MCCARTHY: Sure. It's obviously clear that if there is family and domestic violence issues, that of course there should be care for them, not just with the Urgent Care Clinics, but obviously with women's shelters and other needs in terms of counselling and support. I think that's critical right across the Northern Territory, indeed, right across Australia. If anything, what we're trying to do here is to A, give clients in our remote and regional areas access to good health, access to good clinics that are open fairly late in the evenings. We’ve seen the opening of the hours here at Palmerston and what’s that meant to families. We want to do the same in our regions. We see far too many clients having to come to Darwin, having to go to Katherine, Alice Springs, and some of them find it really difficult to get home. But if they haven’t needed to come in the first place because they could receive that urgent care right through in their community, it will also assist them and their families and their personal lives.
JOURNALIST: Are you confident in being able to staff these remote clinics?
MCCARTHY: I am confident, and I'll tell you why. We committed, when we came into government, rolling out 500 positions, traineeship positions in terms of Indigenous health clinicians. We now have over 300 of those 500 currently training across the country. So I am very confident that with the work of AMSANT and with the work of the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health organisations, we are going to meet that. It will take time, but we've come a long way just in 18 months.
JOURNALIST: Just coming back to an earlier conversation you and I were having beforehand, can you just run me through of the six clinics, are some co-located with an existing clinic, or are some entirely new clinics?
MCCARTHY: Sure. Look, I might hand over to John Paterson on that front, but John was correct when he said that I said it was a transition. And this is obviously a transition of the current existing clinics. Where we can obviously build new clinics is a real luxury. That's not going to happen right at this stage, but the ability for the current clinics to be expanded or extended in some sort of ways to assist with the transition will be what we're focused on.
JOURNALIST: Can I quickly ask a question on an unrelated topic?
MCCARTHY: Sure
JOURNALIST: The Arrernte people are calling for a breakaway land council after the sort of ructions at the Central Land Council we saw earlier this week. What do you think of that proposal?
MCCARTHY Can I just say, in terms of the statutory bodies of the Aboriginal Land Councils across the Northern Territory, they come under what's known as the Aboriginal Land Rights Act of Northern Territory 1976. So statutory bodies, there is legal opportunities for any Traditional Owners to call for any kind of breakaways and there are processes that they may wish to follow, whether that's with the Central Land Council, whether that's with the Northern Land Council or Anindilyakwa Land Council or the Tiwi Land Council. So that is a process that's entirely up to Traditional Owners to determine. It's not for the Federal Government to determine that. And may I also just add that, with what I've also read with the Central Land Council this week, it is also incumbent on every Land Council to determine what is going on in their own meetings. They have elected members. It is a democracy as far as their elections are concerned, and their members have the right to raise all sorts of issues. But their officials in those organisations also have a duty to deal with those matters, not the Federal Government.
JOURNALIST: I've just got one other matter as well. The Chief Minister, Eva Lawler, is doing an event later today about a new Darwin youth detention building opening. How does the Commonwealth Government feel that the NT Government has incarcerated 30 per cent more youths into youth detention than it budgeted for, in the last year?
MCCARTHY: Can I just say on incarceration more broadly, we want to see the reduction, certainly of First Nations people, in incarceration. We know that a lot of the factors that get them in there are usually very simple issues, whether it's unlicensed driving, whether it's unregistered vehicles, whether they haven't paid their fines. So we are very aware at the national level that the incarceration rates of First Nations people in particular is extraordinarily high. Now, if there are issues here in the Northern Territory, I certainly do believe that the Chief Minister is dealing with that and her ministers, and I know that they are moving on that, in terms of the development of sites for the next Don Dale or whatever they choose to call it, and working with youth right across the Northern Territory.
JOURNALIST: Do you think it's acceptable that the NT Government's youth bail law changes have dramatically increased the rates of Indigenous youth incarceration?
MCCARTHY: Well, incarceration rates of youth is always a concern. Naturally, we want to see that there are programs for them to keep them out of these custodial settings, and those programs rely on having better youth programs, having programs like the one out at Seven Emus near Borroloola, where they work with our children to assist, because you do have a variety of problems with our youth. Some, it's just simply homelessness; some, it's family and domestic violence. Others, it's FASD, the foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, where they require extra clinical support. So you have to treat each individual member on their merits and work with them and hopefully keep them out of the justice system.
JOURNALIST: Were you able to run through, Malarndirri said you might be in a position to, what was the question?
PATERSON: The remote or whether there's going to be..
JOURNALIST: Whether they're collaborative, yeah.
PATERSON: Yeah. So, look, those allocated Urgent Care Clinics in the major centres, such here as Palmerston and Alice Springs and Katherine and Tennant Creek, there are opportunities, no doubt, to have them separated like we have here. We've got the general main, primary healthcare clinic in the front through the other entrance to the clinic here, and you've got the Urgent Care Clinic separately at the back. So, in remote communities, unfortunately, we don't have that sort of, those sorts of opportunities. So, from our perspective- and our member services are quite happy and ready to go to have them co-located within the existing clinics, as one shift finishes for the day; the other shift will obviously come in and undertake the appropriate healthcare for community members that require them after hours. So, it's all good. We've got to have coordination, plenty of coordination, good planning, and if we can have a one-stop shop, that's even better.
JOURNALIST: Fantastic, great. Thank you.
MCCARTHY: Thank you.