---
title: "Category 1 (urgent) waiting times in Northern Territory"
description: "Category 1 (urgent) planned surgery in Northern Territory: the recommended maximum wait of 30 days, and each public hospital's on-time share for 2024–25."
url: "https://surgerywaits.au/urgency/category-1/nt/"
---

# 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](https://surgerywaits.au/hospital/alice-springs-hospital/) down to **69%** at [Royal Darwin Hospital](https://surgerywaits.au/hospital/royal-darwin-hospital/).

Reference period 2024–25 (1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025) · released 28 May 2026.

**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](https://surgerywaits.au/hospital/alice-springs-hospital/) | 88% | 9 days | 719 surgeries |
| 2 | [Gove Hospital](https://surgerywaits.au/hospital/gove-hospital/) | 77% | 7 days | 34 surgeries |
| 3 | [Palmerston Regional Hospital](https://surgerywaits.au/hospital/palmerston-regional-hospital/) | 72% | 15 days | 618 surgeries |
| 4 | [Katherine Hospital](https://surgerywaits.au/hospital/katherine-hospital/) | 71% | 11 days | 63 surgeries |
| 5 | [Royal Darwin Hospital](https://surgerywaits.au/hospital/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](https://surgerywaits.au/urgency/category-1/), see [Northern Territory's waiting times by surgery](https://surgerywaits.au/state/nt/), or start from [what the urgency categories mean](https://surgerywaits.au/urgency/).

## Before you use these figures

Surgery Waits is not medical advice. It republishes official statistics about waiting times that have already happened, and it does not recommend any hospital, doctor or treatment. Your general practitioner (GP) and your treating specialist are the right people to help you decide what is appropriate for you.

**In an emergency call 000.**

Waiting-time figures: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare MyHospitals, licensed under [CC BY 3.0 AU](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/). Quarterly state figures: Queensland Health. Suburb and locality data: Australian Bureau of Statistics. Both licensed under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Surgery Waits is not connected with any of these organisations.

Surgery Waits is published by [National Digital](https://nationaldigital.com.au/).

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This is the Markdown copy of https://surgerywaits.au/urgency/category-1/nt/.