Surgery Waits

Category 1 (urgent) waiting times in Northern Territory

Of the 5 public hospitals that published a figure for 2024–25, the share treated on time ranged from 88% at Alice Springs Hospital down to 69% at Royal Darwin Hospital.

Reference period 2024–25 (1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025) · released

Category 1 (urgent) means surgery is recommended within 30 days of being placed on the waiting list. Surgery that is clinically urgent: the condition can deteriorate quickly enough to become an emergency. The table ranks Northern Territory's public hospitals by the share of urgent patients treated within that time in 2024–25.

Urgency figures cover all planned surgery at the hospital, not one procedure. They are never combined with the procedure figures.

Category 1 (urgent) planned surgery at Northern Territory public hospitals, 2024–25, ranked by the share treated within the recommended time — highest first. Hospitals with the same figure share a rank; a hospital with no published figure is listed unranked. Every figure was released on 2026-05-28.
Rank Hospital Treated on time Median wait Surgeries
1 Alice Springs Hospital 88% 9 days 719 surgeries
2 Gove Hospital 77% 7 days 34 surgeries
3 Palmerston Regional Hospital 72% 15 days 618 surgeries
4 Katherine Hospital 71% 11 days 63 surgeries
5 Royal Darwin Hospital 69% 18 days 1295 surgeries

What is not here

Public hospitals only. Private hospitals do not report to this collection, so their waiting times cannot be compared here.

Compare with every state's hospitals, see Northern Territory's waiting times by surgery, or start from what the urgency categories mean.