Doctors warn care standards compromised as NT's busiest hospital ages

Women forced to labour in RDH tearoom, run-down wards as NT government shuts down calls for new hospital Wed 17 Jun 2026 at 7:31am In short: Women have reported birthing in run-down rooms, with broken air-conditioning and bathroom doors that won't close, at Royal Darwin Hospital. One woman told the ABC had to labour in a public tearoom inside RDH until a birthing suite became available. What's next? Calls for funding to replace the ageing hospital are growing, but the NT's health minister has confirmed a replacement is not on the agenda. It has been almost a year since Tessa Czislowski spent hours labouring in a tearoom, before staff moved her to a "run-down" birthing room inside the Northern Territory's biggest public hospital. The Darwin mother was already experiencing intense contractions by the time she reached Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH) on a busy night in June last year. Nurses told her no birthing suites were available and Ms Czislowski said she laboured for an hour in the hospital's corridors. Eventually, her obstetrician took her to the only available space: the maternity ward tearoom. Ms Czislowski said another mother was there too, waiting to find out whether her baby's decreased fetal movements meant something was wrong. "She did an ultrasound with me laying on a couch [and] my husband standing at the door to stop anybody walking in," she said. Over the next two hours, Ms Czislowski tried to block out the apologetic strangers walking in to make tea or coffee. When a birthing room became available, she said it was cramped and the shared bathroom had a broken showerhead plus a malfunctioning door that left her exposed as she showered and used the toilet. "The staff were fantastic, but the [hospital] facilities are very, very old and very run-down,"she said. The maternity facilities at RDH have continued to cop backlash since the Territory's only private maternity ward shut down last year. Women have reported birthing in hot rooms with broken air-conditioning, and a growing number are choosing to travel interstate to have their babies, or leaving the NT altogether. 'Lack of physical space for patients' Brigid Beilby's baby was born at RDH last month with jaundice. The local mother said, despite voicing concerns and asking for preventative treatment, she was sent home. "They just really wanted to discharge us and I think that came down to a lack of staff, a lack of equipment and physical space for patients,"she said. Ms Beilby said, in the space of just two days, her baby's condition worsened. She rushed back to the hospital's emergency department, where doctors told Ms Beilby her baby could suffer brain damage or hearing loss. Ms Beilby said the state of RDH had factored into the upsetting ordeal. According to the local mum, the bathroom she was sharing with four other women had blood smeared on the floor and toilet seat, and was so small there was no space for anyone help her shower after giving birth. No new hospital plans Doctors say the issues at RDH extend beyond just the maternity ward, with many calling for the federal government to fund a replacement hospital. Seven months ago, after a section of ceiling collapsed during a tropical cyclone, then-head of NT Health Chris Hosking said the hospital — now over 50 years old — was "creaking at the seams" and needed to be replaced. In May, the NT government highlighted what it described as a record health spend in its 2026 budget, but was accused of cutting operational funding and spending only $8 million on new health infrastructure — a fraction of the $2.7 billion committed to infrastructure projects in the Territory. In budget estimates on Monday, NT Health Minister Steve Edgington acknowledged the Territory's hospitals had aged significantly but admitted replacing any of them was not a priority. "The question around the specifics — 'Are we building a new hospital?' — I think the short answer is: No,"he said. "We have two-and-a-half years left in our term of government and no hospital could be built in that short timeframe." However, he said Mr Hosking had been reappointed to a new role dedicated and was developing long-term plans. Longer wait times, fed up doctors Australian Medical Association NT (AMA NT) president John Zorbas said the underfunding issue had become so dire, doctors were no longer able to provide patients with the standard of care they deserved. He said patients were facing longer wait times, hospital equipment was being pushed beyond its limits, and doctors were becoming fed up with the lack the necessary tools to perform their jobs efficiently, causing some to leave. "We have some spaces, like the neonatal intensive care unit, that look the same now as they did 30 [or] 40 years ago," Dr Zorbas said. "The MRI scanner that we have is running flat-tack — that list is always full." During the NT's estimates this week, health department staff also conceded RDH's morphology scanner — a routine mid-pregnancy ultrasound — was so busy, women were being told to drive three hours to Katherine to access the scan. Last year, Dr Zorbas warned the Darwin hospital was "dangerously full, on a daily basis". He said hospital occupancy was still a major issue at RDH, with between 40 and 80 aged care patients still occupying acute hospital beds at any one time. "The hospital is full of good people delivering good care, but Territorians deserve more than just baseline safe care … we deserve the same care that we would get in any other part of Australia,"he said. "Right now, the lack of healthcare infrastructure funding is holding us back from being able to deliver that." In a statement, Mr Edgington said aged care was a federal responsibility and called on the Albanese government to "get on with the job" of building a new Top End hospital. The NT health minister also said a new 32-bed, multi-purpose ward and mental health unit — expected to open this year — would ease some of the local pressure and capacity issues. [Image text:] EMERGENC &TRAUMA CENTRE PEMERCENG