Aged-Care Beds

Ms DIGANCE (Elder) (14:27): My question is for the Minister for Health. Can you inform the house what impact the availability of appropriate aged-care beds has on patients and their families in our health system?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:28): I thank the member for Elder for her question. She is a great advocate for our health system, being a nurse in a previous occupation. Our hospitals, and in particular our emergency departments—

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Unley is warned for the second and final time. He surely doesn't want to be the first person under sessional orders ejected twice in the same day.

Mr Pisoni: I don't think you know what I want, sir.

The SPEAKER: Accordingly, the member for Unley will leave us for 15 minutes.

The honourable member for Unley having withdrawn from the chamber.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: I don't think anyone would know what the member for Unley wants, sir.

The SPEAKER: The Minister for Health is called to order.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Our hospitals and, in particular, our emergency departments have been under intense pressure over the past month as our state deals with one of the worst flu seasons on record. The massive demand has increased the focus on what we can then do to improve the flow in our emergency departments.

Doctors and nurses in our health system tell me that a barrier preventing our hospitals from working better is a lack of appropriate aged-care beds in our community. This results in patients who have received an aged-care assessment and who have no clinical need to remain in hospital remaining in limbo while they wait for a commonwealth subsidised aged-care bed. While this has a negative impact on our hospital system, more importantly it adds to the stress of patients and their families.

I am told as of Wednesday last week there were 127 patients across South Australian metropolitan hospitals who had received an aged-care assessment and are no longer to be in an acute care bed. To put that in perspective, at the moment we have increased the total number of beds in our hospital system by roughly 150 to deal with the present crisis of 127 beds being taken up with elderly people waiting for a place in a residential care facility who have already received an ACAT assessment, so this is a massive impact on our public hospitals.

Long stay older patients represent a cost shift by the commonwealth to the states due to delays in patients being able to be moved into appropriate residential aged-care places. This is expensive to our—

The Hon. I.F. Evans: What were Rudd and Gillard doing for six years?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Sorry, the father of marine parks is interjecting. I can't quite hear him.

The Hon. I.F. Evans: What were Rudd and Gillard doing for six years?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Sorry, the father of marine parks keeps carrying on. I can't quite hear him. He's saying something, mumbling away in his dotage. Marine parks will be the great legacy of the member for Davenport.

This is expensive to our public hospital system and a poor outcome for the wellbeing of older people and their families. The Premier and I have both recently raised concerns about long stay older patients with the commonwealth. The 2014-15 federal budget announced that the national partnership agreement on long stay older patients would not be renewed; it ceased on 30 June. This agreement had provided funding of around $42 million over three years from 2011-12 in recognition of the costs incurred by state and territory governments in caring for long stay older patients. It is disappointing that this decision was taken by the commonwealth without even undertaking a review as was agreed to in the national partnership agreement.

Without having an understanding of continuing need, and without taking into account South Australia's concern about the impact of long stay older patients, it is not clear how the commonwealth determined that there was no need for further funding to be built into their budget. This is just another example in small part of the $655 million in cuts to our health system that Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey have made to our hospitals over the next four years. Around the country Liberal premiers and Liberal treasurers have been protesting to the commonwealth government about these cuts. The only Liberal Party members in Australia who are prepared to acquiesce in these cuts are those sitting opposite.