Hospital Waiting Times

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:32): A supplementary. Given that patients this morning were facing a four-hour wait at the Flinders emergency department, has the government changed its strategy in relation to transferring emergency patients to Flinders?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:32): Sorry. Say that again.

Mr MARSHALL: I am just saying, given that this morning patients were facing a four-hour wait for the emergency department at the Flinders Medical Centre, has the government changed its strategy in relation to transferring emergency patients to Flinders?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Changed its strategy?

Mr Marshall: Well, it's overcrowded.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Well, yes. The Leader of the Opposition is pointing out the obvious, and that is that our hospitals are very busy at the moment and, yes, sometimes people are going to have to wait. One thing that we are very good at in our emergency departments is seeing people reasonably quickly. People do get seen promptly by a doctor, particularly if they are in the higher triage categories. Of course, if people are on the lower triage categories, they will have to wait and sometimes they will have to wait a significant period of time. But people are clinically assessed by a triage nurse and the order in which they are seen is determined. Our hospitals are sometimes going to get very busy, and unfortunately that means sometimes there will be delays.