Satellite dish installed on Mornington Island to support hospital during severe weather

Health services on Mornington Island, located just off Queensland's north west coast, have struggled to keep up with high rates of chronic disease amongst the island's small community.

The island's remoteness and distance from the mainland has also meant that its single link network connection experienced dropouts, especially during bad weather.

The new NBN satellite dish was installed to establish backup network capabilities during periods of outage and intended to support the hospital during these events when access to enterprise systems is critical.

North West Hospital and Health Service (HHS) Rural and Remote Chief Information Officer Helen Murray said staff were looking forward to trialling this new connectivity option.

"Staff at the Mornington Island Hospital will initially simulate having no connectivity except for the satellite dish and trial its effectiveness and efficiency," she said.

According to North West HHS, the installation of the dish, which was a joint initiative implemented alongside eHealth Queensland, will improve the hospital's day-to-day operations as well as provide the public with internet access within the facility.

"This addition is important to the future of business continuity on the island for both telephone and data networks," she said.

"This trial will help both North West HHS and eHealth Queensland determine whether the satellite service will meet the needs of all our remote locations."

The installation of the satellite dish comes just in time for the upcoming wet season.