Alice Springs Hospital is the major referral hospital for Central Australia, serving a population of more than 42,000 people in an area exceeding a million square kilometres, covering more than 60 per cent of the Northern Territory and extending into the bordering areas of South Australia and Western Australia.
The hospital has more than 65,000 admissions annually and, with almost 84 per cent of patients being Aboriginal, it cares for some of the nation's most vulnerable people, with high levels of morbidity and mortality, and many with conditions rarely seen elsewhere in the country.
The medicine is diverse and complex with a prevalence of rheumatic heart disease, bronchiectasis, chronic liver, and renal disease, along with diabetes in a young population with a median age of just 34.
Alice Springs Hospital is a 207-bed facility providing a general range of secondary, and some tertiary, inpatient, outpatient and specialist services, including a renal dialysis centre catering for more than 400 patients.
The hospital is home to a 10-bed Intensive Care Unit treating more than 600 patients per year, while the Emergency Department is the major trauma response centre for the region.
The major staff specialist services are medicine, surgery including ophthalmology, ENT and orthopaedic, paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, and palliative care.
Alice Springs hospital provides both vocational (ACRRM/RACGP) and prevocational rural trainees opportunities to work in a regional hospital in an acute health environment. There are no JFPDP funded prevocational rural trainee placements currently at Alice Springs Hospital.
