MARJORIE JACKSON-NELSON HOSPITAL

Mr RAU (Enfield) (14:34): My question is to the Minister for Health. What would the implications be of patching up the RAH compared with building a new hospital?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:34): It is an excellent question and it is always a delight to answer the honourable member's questions and to give the house further information about the outstanding proposition on which we are working, which is the building of a new hospital, the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital. Rebuilding the RAH would cost more, would disrupt staff and patients for 15 years and, in the final analysis, provide a poorer quality hospital.

If we had begun rebuilding the Royal Adelaide Hospital at the beginning of 2007 it would cost $1.4 billion. However, if the government were to change and in 2010 the opposition (if it were then to be the government) started the rebuilding, it would not start until 2010. The Department of Health advises me that those three years of delay on an already very long patch-up job would add approximately $370 million in escalation costs during the construction stage. This would take the cost of the Liberals' policy to $1.75 billion. In addition, it would not be finished until 2024-25.

Of course, other important factors need to be taken into account. The Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital will be one of the most efficient in the world. Also, it will be bigger—it will be 800 beds compared with 680 beds. It will save this state at least $50 million a year in operating costs and generate at least $400 million in operating savings over the eight or nine years.

Secondly, rebuilding the Royal Adelaide Hospital would seriously impact on its capacity to undertake its day-to-day work. If the Liberals were still rebuilding the hospital in 2024-25 they would need an additional capacity of about 150 beds somewhere else. That could cost at least $100 million. Lastly, by the time of the next election the government would have spent about $25 million on the project. So, if the project did not proceed, $25 million would be lost. These combined factors take the Liberals' policy to at least $2.2 billion in round figures. That is at least $500 million more than building a new hospital. These costings are independent of remediation of the site which we have to do in order to build a new hospital but which the Liberals would have to do in order to build a stadium on the site.

In addition, today I released new figures showing the estimated additional cost of rebuilding the RAH in the forward estimates, at the time of the next election and over the six years from 2010. I table a document which demonstrates that matter. Between 2010 and 2016, when the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital will open, the Liberals would have spent an additional $202.5 million. The proposed PPP payment arrangements will commence only once this project is complete. Under our plan, in 2016, an 800-bed hospital will open.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Members opposite are outrageous in their behaviour. Under our plan, by 2016, our 800-bed hospital will be the most advanced in Australia and provide brand new facilities for our doctors, nurses and patients. Under the Liberals' plan, by 2016 they would have spent an extra $202.5 million and the first new beds would still be three years away from opening; and the RAH would remain a construction site for another eight years or so. The Liberals need to explain where the $202 million will come from. Will they stop rebuilding the Lyell McEwin Hospital or pull $200 million from education, for example?

Anyone who has renovated a house while living in it will know about the disturbance created by construction work. The Liberals' plan would effectively condemn patients and staff at the RAH to working and being treated in a construction site for 15 years.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Mr Speaker, I hope we have that on film; it would be worthwhile having.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Members on my left will come to order.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: We will get some Meaty Bites for you.

The SPEAKER: The Attorney-General will come to order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Obviously, members opposite do not like the facts. They always have trouble with the truth. D.G. Fenwick, a retired anaesthetist from the RAH, wrote an excellent letter to The Advertiser today. The letter states:

…over the years I had to cancel operations on critically ill patients during times of renovation. This was because of the overwhelming noise made at the time, which filled the operating theatre, precluding the safe monitoring of ill patients during a difficult time…The worst offenders were jackhammers, resulting in noise from many floors away. Renovating the RAH over 15 years…would disrupt work, compromise patient safety and make health-care providers' jobs more difficult.

That is the Liberal Party promise. The choice for South Australians at the next election is between a brand new, purpose built, state-of-the-art hospital open in 2016 at a cheaper rate or the compromised position put by the opposition which would disrupt patients and staff, which would not be finished until 2025 and which would cost more money.