00:02Nurses are warning Darwin's public hospital emergency department is unsafe for staff and patients.
00:10That attacks on staff are out of control.
00:13Nurses do feel unsafe every day and they have told us that these incidents occur so frequently.
00:20That hospital security guards can take up to 15 minutes to respond to duress alarms.
00:26And that the team leader may not even be aware of that alarm.
00:31I don't think we have a systemic problem with slow response times there.
00:35The health department is promising some more security measures.
00:40We are actually moving to strengthen some of those arrangements at the moment which I think was one of the
00:45things the ANMF were calling for
00:47which was personal duress alarms that nursing staff can carry on their person.
00:54Nurses say the emergency department is often dangerously overloaded with patients running at 150% capacity.
01:04Yeah, look, I'm not so sure I'd go so far as to call it unsafe.
01:08They're certainly correct in saying that we're running very at capacity or close capacity.
01:14Progressively, fewer emergency services patients have been treated within recommended times.
01:20If and when somebody dies because there are inadequate staffing, that is on the government's shoulders.
01:26The government is promising two new wards in the hospital will ease pressure on emergency.
01:3332 new beds will make a difference.
01:35We've got a new 24 bed mental health ward that will come online later in the year.
01:41The head of the NT's health department says ultimately Royal Darwin Hospital won't be able to deal properly with its
01:48problem of trying to treat more patients than it's able to unless a new bigger hospital is built.
01:54And he's appealing to the federal government to help provide the hundreds of millions of dollars that would cost.
02:01I'm hoping this might last.
02:02I'm hoping this is really helpful for everyone who lives in the new states.
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