{"id":3259,"date":"2026-05-02T06:15:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T06:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/3259\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T06:15:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T06:15:16","slug":"future-of-northern-territory-ambulance-service-in-doubt-as-paramedics-reach-breaking-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/3259\/","title":{"rendered":"Future of Northern Territory ambulance service in doubt as paramedics reach breaking point"},"content":{"rendered":"

The future of the Northern Territory’s ambulance service is hanging in the balance, with the new chief executive warning that unless demand on paramedics is reduced, the organisation is at risk of collapse.<\/p>\n

St John Ambulance NT, which is contracted by the territory government to provide ambulance services, was pushed to the point of “critical failure” last month, forcing the service to call an operational capacity white \u2014 the highest level of system pressure \u2014 twice in two weeks.<\/p>\n

On one occasion, more than 60 Triple Zero (000) calls reverted to Telstra after going unanswered and more than a dozen life-threatening cases could not be attended within the required 15 minutes, with one high-priority patient waiting more than five hours for help.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Stateline NT, the organisation’s new chief executive, Abigail Trewin, said she was “horrified” by the situation facing paramedics in the NT.<\/a><\/p>\n

“The public needs to know that the service can’t meet what they’re asking of us, and we need to reassure our staff that we’re taking this seriously and asking for the resources needed to run an essential service,” she said.<\/p>\n

‘Fortunate’ no one died<\/p>\n

Ms Trewin said while it was “fortunate” no one died, patients suffered “genuine harm” due to paramedics not being able to get<\/a> to jobs quickly enough.<\/p>\n

“I know of a case where a woman had a seizure for over two hours because an ambulance couldn’t arrive to stop that seizure and they spent a significant amount of time in intensive care as a result,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

St John ambulance service is under increasing pressure, long wait times and paramedics facing threats of physical violence. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

Ms Trewin acknowledged the situation was unacceptable but said wait times could only be improved through better resourcing.<\/p>\n

“We need to do better \u2026 but we can’t do that without the resources we need to get those response times down,” she said.<\/p>\n

Paramedics ‘pulled from vehicles’ and ‘beaten’<\/p>\n

Ms Trewin said on top of a crippling workload, paramedics were facing escalating violence on the job.<\/p>\n

\"Female<\/p>\n

Abigail Trewinn says NT paramedics are “demoralised”. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n

She said on average, the service recorded up to four incidents per day across the NT.<\/p>\n

“They’ve included staff members being pulled from vehicles and being beaten until they’re semi-conscious,” Ms Trewin said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve had staff members strangled in ambulances, we’ve had staff members punched in the head and then we’ve had the physical shoving, the verbal abuse and threats of harm.”<\/p>\n

Ms Trewin said the NT service was battling a 28 per cent staff attrition rate.<\/p>\n

NT paramedics assaulted, lacking resources<\/a><\/p>\n

The ABC rode along with St John Ambulance NT paramedics to hear the impact under-resourcing is having on the workforce, including stories of staff being assaulted on the job.<\/p>\n

After taking on the role of CEO two months ago, Ms Trewin said she discovered a “demoralised” workforce.<\/p>\n

NT paramedics are among the highest-paid in the country, but Ms Trewin said the issue was not pay \u2014 it was an unsustainable demand.<\/p>\n

“I was at a job the other day, it was a horrible motor vehicle accident, and you have a crew dealing with open wounds, bones out of arms, bleeding,” she said.<\/p>\n

“You’re asking them to stay calm, to resolve the situation \u2026 imagine doing that 12 hours a day, job after job after job without being able to have a break.”<\/p>\n

$10m ‘sugar hit’ not enough to ease pressure<\/p>\n

In April, the NT government announced a $10m funding boost for St John to relieve pressure while a new five-year contract was negotiated.<\/p>\n

\"Wide-side-shot<\/p>\n

St John ambulance chief executive Abigail Trewlin says she knows wait times are unacceptable. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)<\/p>\n

“We’re really grateful that there’s been an investment so quickly,” Ms Trewin said.<\/p>\n

“We’ll be able to put on one ambulance with that and a couple of call takers so it’s very helpful.<\/p>\n

“But it certainly isn’t the sustained investment we need to address the resource issues this agency is experiencing.”<\/p>\n

Ms Trewin said the service, which had just five full-time ambulances for Darwin and Palmerston, was asking for five more ambulances this year and a sustained increase in funding in coming years to keep pace with a growing population.<\/p>\n

“It’s quite a modest request and it’s what is needed to actually support an essential service.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

St John NT ambulance is asking for five more ambulances this year to meet a growing population. (ABC News: Pete Garnish)<\/p>\n

She said unless resources were urgently bolstered, the service may not be able to continue operating.<\/a><\/p>\n

“We would need to take a long, hard look at how we would then move forward with the service because a one or two-hour delay for a priority-one call is not something our service can tolerate.”<\/p>\n

The NT budget will be handed down on May 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The future of the Northern Territory’s ambulance service is hanging in the balance, with the new chief executive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2712,4462,4460,4461,22,21,4463,4457,4458,4456,4455,4459],"class_list":["post-3259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-ambulance","tag-ambulance-assault","tag-ambulance-delays","tag-ambulance-shortage","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-critical-failure-ambulance","tag-nt-ambulance","tag-nt-paramedics","tag-st-john","tag-st-john-ambulance","tag-triple-zero"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}