Darwin hospital opens new ward with hopes of easing capacity pressures

A newly opened, $24 million multi-purpose ward at the Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH) has welcomed its first patients.

All of the 32 beds in Ward 1C are expected to be available by the end of the month.

The ward's opening comes amid persistent high patient demand and overcrowding issues at the aging hospital, which has experienced six code yellows since January.

A new multi-purpose ward at the Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH) has received its first patients this week, with hopes the additional beds will ease months — if not years — of intense staffing and capacity pressures.

Construction of Ward 1C was announced by the former Territory Labor government in 2023 , with the $23.95 million investment designed to address the high patient demand and overcrowding that has persisted at the ageing hospital .

NT Health Minister Steve Edgington said 13 patients were now receiving care at the new ward, and the government expected all of its 32 beds would be available to staff and patients by the end of this month.

"Very soon we'll be opening up the 24-bed mental health facility as well, so, with 24 beds at the mental health [ward], 32 beds here, we are expecting that to ease the overall pressure throughout the hospital," he said.

In a statement, an NT government spokesperson said the new facility had been designed as a "multi-purpose ward to care for bariatric, renal and general medical patients".

They said the ward's "flexible" design would allow for "cardiac monitoring, additional isolation capacity, bariatric accommodation, and additional space for patients experiencing cognitive impairment".

The opening of the new ward comes after six code yellows — when extraordinary levels of patient demand lead to emergency procedures being put in place — have been called at the Darwin and Palmerston hospitals since January.

The most recent lasted for weeks in July through to August, and was described by the NT's nursing and midwifery union as "the worst one we've ever had".

The emergency prompted NT Health's acting chief executive Susan Bowden to issue a call-out for almost 60 qualified non-frontline workers to return to the hospital floor to relieve exhausted staff.

Today, Ms Bowden said she was "really happy" to share that more than 30 staff had taken up the call.

"We were listening to particularly the nurse's federation, that there was pressure on the staff," she said.