What you don’t need is to become seriously unwell in Darwin over the weekend. From the close of business on Friday until business is open again on Monday, the ability of a very sick person to be carefully and properly managed with their health needs is almost zero.

The only viable option (and the only option available) is to be conveyed by ambulance to Royal Darwin Hospital ED. The ambulance service is excellent and paramedics very very well qualified and caring people. Their service is AAA.

The ED at the Darwin Royal Hospital is entirely different. It’s like the “Z“ of efficiency compared to the excellence of the paramedic service.

This is not the place to summarise the differences or to comment on detail on the ED. Suffice it to say that patients are numbers rather than people. Suffice to say that care is often minimal and seems to be reluctantly given. And suffice it to say that very little of what’s happening for the patient has communicated directly to the patient by those ministering to his or her needs.

The only available situation medically for those who are very very ill (apart from one or two surgeries that might be open for limited hours) is the Royal Darwin Hospital ED. That is insufficient and given the policies of management and administration of health in the BT isnot good enough!

I am writing this onto my main educational blog. It’s not really an educational topic! However, if “education is a life force“, then health and hospital care should be a service offered to support life. In general terms, and on weekends particularly, I just do not see that the Royal Darwin Hospital ED has sufficient understanding of that particular priority.