Grievance Debate

PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (15:39): I am sorry that the new Premier has gone as I was going to congratulate him on being appointed to the job but also draw attention to his ministerial statement today where he states:

My challenge to all of us today is to do better.

He goes on to say:

...I'm not prepared to accept the current state of affairs.

Well, can I draw his attention to the state of the public health system in South Australia. If he is just relying on what his minister is telling him, he is being very badly advised. Can I just suggest that the Premier go to my website and download the instruction booklets on the hospital dashboards and learn to read the hospital dashboards, because the government's own website is damning of the public health system in South Australia.

He should also ask the minister about the internal key performance index dashboards, which show the absolutely abysmal state of our health in South Australia. No wonder the nurses are threatening legal action again, and no wonder the doctors are complaining all the time, because the state of the South Australian health system is absolutely atrocious.

Even down in the Premier's own electorate, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is being downgraded and killed off by a death by a thousand cuts as we speak, with moves to take out the intensive care unit, remove the vascular surgery unit and move many of the services. We have already seen millions spent on removing the renal transplant unit down to the Royal Adelaide Hospital on Frome Road, which they are going to bulldoze—millions and millions.

The Premier seems to be ignoring this altogether. He seems to be in denial, or just does not want to know. He cannot be Sergeant Schultz on this; he has to know, he has to listen, and he has to understand that it cannot be 'announce and defend'. It cannot be the denial that we have from the Minister for Health at the moment.

As at 2 o'clock yesterday afternoon at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, the emergency department dashboard showed there were 16 patients waiting for beds. Three of those had been waiting for nearly four hours, four had been waiting for nearly eight hours, one had been waiting for between 12 and 24 hours, and two patients had been waiting for more than 24 hours. We see on the emergency department dashboards regularly that the departments are full to bursting, and they are often in the white zone.

I remind members in this place that, if they cannot understand this, they should go to my website and download the instruction book. When the emergency departments are in the white zone, they are at 125 per cent capacity and over. Do not just believe what the dashboards say or what the shadow minister says; listen to what the doctors say.

At the general meeting of the Medical Staff Society, held at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in August, a doctor raised the issue of 'block beds', 'i.e. beds placed in a corridor for an extended period of time in Emergency waiting assessment'. The hospitals are full to bursting—absolutely full to bursting—yet this minister stated in the Sunday Mail, 'I do not accept the claim that there is an overcrowding problem in our public hospitals.'

I got an email this morning from a doctor at the Lyell McEwin hospital, which stated the Lyell McEwin hospital was 'so full last night hospital was on SAAS [South Australian Ambulance Service] diversion for a few hours with patients in corridors everywhere and nowhere to see newly arriving patients.' I understand this was the same on Sunday night at Lyell McEwin.

The most important thing that this Minister for Health can do is resign, because he is in complete denial. He told this chamber on 24 October 2007, 'The buck stops with me,' but he refuses to accept the fact that the buck does stop with him. I would be interested to see where all the bucks are going, because we saw in the last Auditor-General's Report that there was an absence of the audit report on Health.

My understanding is that the Auditor still has not been able to complete that report because it is in such a mess—an absolute, abysmal mess. This minister is in denial; he is not on top of the subject, not on top of the detail and not on top of the concerns of South Australians. He is not listening to nurses and he is not listening to doctors; he is just continuing to listen to bureaucrats who are so out of touch.

To further compound that, when there is a complaint aired in the media, what does this minister do? He gets stuck into the individuals involved. We saw that just recently, where a doctor in Gawler was trying to place a patient in one of our hospitals. The Gawler Bunyip raised the issue, and the minister made a disgraceful statement in this house—at the insistence of our new Deputy Speaker—where the minister got stuck into the doctor.

The doctor (Dr Joe Tamer) stated in the Gawler Bunyip that he '...stands by the public statements he has made about hospital accessibility in TheBunyip on September 28'. Dr Tamer stated, 'These are the facts and the truths which everyone tries to ignore and attack myself as the doctor...' This minister is in denial. This Premier needs to listen and wake up.