Tennant Creek Hospital

Category:

Students and GPR

Schmidt Street off Memorial Drive

Tennant Creek Hospital is part of an integrated health service offered by Barkly Health Services. The hospital is a 20 bed facility serving 6 000 residents across the 250 000 sq km Barkly Region which extends from just north of Ti-Tree in the south to Elliott in the north and east to the Queensland border. The hospital provides inpatient, domiciliary, outpatient and emergency services.

Visiting specialist services are provided by Alice Springs Hospital and include:
• general surgery,
• opthalmology,
• obstetrics/gynaecology,
• paediatrics, orthopaedics,
• physician, rehabilitation and ear, nose and throat.

Day surgery facilities are available. Support services include pharmacy, pathology, radiology, ultrasound, physiotherapy,
occupational therapy, speech pathology, disease control and dietetics. Family and Children’s Services staff provide social work, child protection and substitute care services.

The hospital employs Aboriginal Health Workers, an Aboriginal Liaison Officer and two interpreters to address the special needs of Aboriginal people in a culturally appropriate manner. Aero medical evacuations are undertaken by medical and nursing staff using either the hospital’s twin engine plane or the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Patients requiring services not available in Tennant Creek are referred to Alice Springs Hospital through either inter hospital transfers or the Patient Assisted Travel Scheme. Serving a dual role as hospital and district medical officers, doctors provide hospital care and conduct routine medical visits to outlying Aboriginal communities and cattle stations. Other services provided to these areas include prevention and early intervention programs with a focus on nutrition, environmental health, disease control and health promotion. Barkly Health Services staff liase closely with other Aboriginal health services and community organisation councils within Tennant Creek.

This ensures collaboration, continuity of service for common clients and reduction in service duplication within the context of Strategy 21 to foster partnerships in Aboriginal development. A decreased town population was reflected by reduced bed occupancy. It is anticipated that this phenomenon will be short lived as the railway camps, sleeper factory and new mine become operational. Accident and emergency and other services remained as busy as previous years.