HEALTH SYSTEM

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (14:37): My question is again to the Minister for Health. After 10 years of this government, why has the South Australian health system become so bad that a woman having a miscarriage was stuck in an ambulance outside Flinders Medical Centre for over two hours?

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Point of order, Madam Speaker. I just point out that saying that this health system has become so bad is argument, is opinion, is comment and is out of order under standing order 97.

The SPEAKER: I uphold that point of order.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I would suggest that the member for Morphett reword his question.

Dr McFETRIDGE: Minister, why has the South Australian health system got to the point where a woman is stuck in an ambulance for two hours outside the Flinders Medical Centre when she is having a miscarriage?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:38): Of course, the opposition has a ghoulish delight in pursuing personal histories and personal circumstances. They of course do it in a way—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: —that is not necessarily based on the facts. Let me give you the facts as they have been given to me. It is the same occasion and, as I said, I apologised to the patients who were in ambulances at the Flinders Medical Centre on the day last week.

I think it is deeply regrettable because obviously this patient's and other patients' personal circumstances were splashed across the media, I think, unfairly. Obviously a miscarriage is a time of great difficulty for a patient but, as I have mentioned in the media before, my understanding in relation to this woman is that the miscarriage had substantially occurred.

She called an ambulance. She said she wanted to go to the Flinders Medical Centre. The Flinders Medical Centre was very busy at the occasion. She was categorised I think as a category 3 triage patient, so it wasn't considered to be urgent. She was obviously very distressed, but as a clinical consideration she was in that kind of category level which meant that she didn't need to be seen immediately. Eventually, because the hospital was very busy, she was taken to the Women's and Children's Hospital where she was treated. That is where she should have gone, and that is why I said the system did not at work as well as it should have.

Often patients have a view about where they want to go, but that is not necessarily in their best interests. On this occasion, it would have been in her better interests if she had been taken immediately to the Women's and Children's Hospital where she would have been treated. That is exactly what happened.