AMBULANCE FEES

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:29): My question is again to the Minister for Health. Did the minister take into consideration the extra burden of transport costs, particularly ambulance fees, when reviewing the Country Health Care Plan when he approved an increase last week in the ambulance fees as published in the Gazette? The new charges as published in the Gazette last week are: emergency 1 callout fee $712; emergency 2 callout fee $513; non-emergency fee $158; and the per kilometre charge is now $4.15, GST free if paid by the local patient. But $4.15 per kilometre!

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:30): Once again the Deputy Leader of the Opposition demonstrates her staggering ability to connect disparate facts and to make some sort of false point. Of course, ambulance service fees have gone up; they have gone up for everyone. We have to increase the fees so that we can sustain the ambulance service. This is a service where demand is growing. One of the consequences of the—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Ask me a question. I am happy to answer any of your questions, but at least listen to the answer. The demand for ambulance services is increasing—that is why we have put extra resources into the budget—and, sadly, the fees have also gone up. I point out parenthetically that, if one takes out ambulance insurance, of course one does not pay those fees: one pays a small annual sum, and I would encourage everyone to do that.

Ambulance services are under increasing demand. We are restructuring the way ambulances services work to make sure that we can provide better services. But, as it relates to the country, there are three points to make. The first is that none of the emergency services in country South Australia will change. If anything, they will be improved, because we are building a state retrieval service which will reinforce the existing good emergency services there, so, that is a non-issue because it will not change. Secondly, we have 550 people from country South Australia in Adelaide hospitals on average every day of the year. That is because the services that they need cannot be obtained in the country. So, as a matter of fact, lots of people now travel to the city. Under the plan that we are proposing, there will be more services close to where people live so that there will be fewer trips by country people to the city. That will actually reduce the demand on the ambulance service.

The third point—and I had a conversation yesterday with the member for Goyder about it—concerns the review that we are doing currently of the passenger assisted transport (PAT) scheme, which has also been under increasing demand over recent years. We have been running a trial on Yorke Peninsula. The member for Goyder can tell those on the other side that it has been going very well. In fact, he came to see me yesterday—and I am sure that he will not mind my saying this since he has been on the record publicly—to ask that it be extended. We said that we would do that at least until the end of the year while we go through the proper review processes.

If we can get that trial to work on a larger scale, it will actually provide a much better country transport service for people needing medical attention. One point that I will accept in relation to this issue is that we do need to make better connections between the various communities—between the larger hospitals and the smaller towns. I agree with that, and that is one of the things that we are certainly working on.