Question Time

FLINDERS MEDICAL CENTRE

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:04): My question is for the Minister for Health and Ageing. Has the current manager of the Flinders Medical Centre emergency department—that is, the person who has either replaced or is filling in for Dr Di King—been instructed to 'guarantee ambulance offload at all times', as Dr Di King was instructed?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (14:04): As I understand it, an acting manager of the emergency department has been appointed and that is one of the staff who are currently working at the emergency department. The member really raises a question about what the policy is in relation to ambulance transfers. I will just read to her, and I can table—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: It is absolutely pertinent whether she has been instructed. I am telling you what the policies are. There is a document, which I am happy to table, called 'SALHN Patient Flow Commitments', and it has a range of commitments, which was determined by the executive team. That includes:

Our overall commitments and aims are—

and this is one of them—

...that we will have no patient waiting in the back of an ambulance on arrival at FMC or NHED and no ambulance crew delayed with a patient. Once transferred to the ED barouche, clinical handover is complete.

That is the policy of the executive of the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network. Dr Di King, who until last week was the director of the emergency department, is a member of that executive, and that executive signed off on that policy. Of course, people who work in the system and who contribute to the development of policy are bound by their own policies.

I would point out that my office today contacted the College for Emergency Medicine to see whether the college could give us any views about whether ramping was a policy that they had a view on. I am informed that the President of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, Dr Sally McCarthy, said, 'We don't support delayed ambulance offloads, that is, we don't support ramping,' and their policies say such.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! There will not be arguments across the chamber floor.