House of Assembly Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2) 52 2 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time Da Vinci Surgical Robot DA VINCI SURGICAL ROBOT The Hon. R.B. SUCH House of Assembly Fisher DA VINCI SURGICAL ROBOT The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (14:57): My question is to the Minister for Health. Can the minister indicate whether the new Da Vinci robot will still be available for public patients requiring prostatic surgery and others who need specialised laparoscopic surgery? The Hon. J.J. SNELLING House of Assembly Playford Minister for Health and Ageing Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse Minister for Defence Industries Minister for Veterans' Affairs DA VINCI SURGICAL ROBOT The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for Defence Industries, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (14:58): The short answer is yes. We have entered into an arrangement with St Andrew's Hospital for public patients—the same number of public patients who are currently using the machine at the Royal Adelaide—to be able to continue to access the machine at St Andrew's Hospital, including overnight stays. If there are complications with the surgery and those patients require a longer stay, then they will be transferred back to the Royal Adelaide but, generally speaking, it would be an overnight stay and that will happen at St Andrew's—that will be done on a fee-for-service basis. Under the arrangement of the contract that we have with St Andrew's, for St Andrew's to have the business case to go and purchase the machine, we had to provide them with a minimum number of patients that we would pay for—public patients who would use the machine. That's 120, but I would suspect that it will be much larger than 120. At the announcement on Sunday, we had the clinical leads for ENT, gynaecology and urology from the Royal Adelaide. They are, of course, incredibly supportive of this arrangement we have with St Andrew's and spoke very glowingly. Importantly, these arrangements with St Andrew's will allow registrars in those areas to be able to be trained in using the Da Vinci machine. We will see how it goes. It's a three-year arrangement with St Andrew's, with a right of renewal at the end of that. If demand for the machine continues to grow and there is a business case for us having a machine full-time located in a public hospital for exclusive public use, then that is something that we will consider. I would think there is probably a reasonably good chance that we would end up acquiring one for the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, but for the next three years we have an arrangement with St Andrew's for public patients to access the machine. It is a fantastic collaboration between the private hospital sector and the public health sector which will bring enormous benefits to public patients who can access this fantastic technology.