ST JOHN NT
NEWSROOM

With up to 2000 people moving through quarantine each fortnight, St John NT has established a new dedicated COVID-19 patient transport service for Top End communities.

Supported by the Northern Territory Government, the service will be based at the Centre for National Resilience and transport suspected COVID-19 positive patients between the Howard Springs facility, Darwin Airport and Royal Darwin Hospital.

“If a paramedic crew is responding to a COVID-19 case, the time spent transporting, donning and doffing PPE and decontaminating the vehicle means they may be unavailable to respond to an emergency incident,” said Andrew Thomas, Director Ambulance Services.

“This additional crew ensures that our responses to COVID-19 do not detract from our services to the broader community.”

Patient transport officers will transfer patients to medical care in non-urgent situations and in this case may be tasked to provide transport for medical treatment, dialysis treatment and anyone in quarantine who needs patient transport.

The additional crew will receive increased PPE training and will help to minimise the amount of St John NT staff who are in contact with potential positive cases, therefore reducing the risk of an outbreak.

St John NT, the Centre for National Resilience and Top End health Services have been working together to implement processes to support patient movements from quarantine and medical facilities.

The crew will be rostered 0800 – 0200 seven days a week.

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Andrew Thomas, Director Ambulance Services is available to speak to media about this exciting development.

Media enquiries: Kate Hulls 0428157762 or media@stjohnnt.asn.au