COUNTRY HEALTH CARE PLAN

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (15:02): My question is to the Minister for Health. When a young child in Marion Bay on Yorke Peninsula falls and needs emergency surgery, where will the parents take the child and, if road ambulance transport is not available, will the minister give an assurance that an air ambulance retrieval will be made available at no additional cost?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (15:03): That is precisely the arrangement, as I understand it, that is in place now. The hypothetical question that the member is asking is based on the assumption that there will be a reduction in emergency services in country South Australia. That is categorically not true, and I give an absolute undertaking that we will not reduce emergency services in country South Australia. We want to strengthen the emergency services in country South Australia.

We have embarked on the development of a state retrieval service, because at the moment we have a number of separate trauma services in South Australia which do not operate at optimum level. We want to integrate them and we want to make sure that the ambulance service, the flying doctor service and the two trauma services at Flinders and Adelaide are integrated in such a way that we can provide a broader range of services to people in the country and to all people in South Australia. That is what we are attempting to achieve and that is the basis of this plan.