Mental Health Beds

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (15:28): My question is to the Minister for Health. Given the minister's statement today and given that currently there are 22 patients waiting for a bed at the Royal Adelaide Hospital emergency department, how will closing Ward C3 at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and transferring 18 beds to Glenside improve direct admissions for mental health patients at the Royal Adelaide, or is the government going to establish an emergency department at Glenside?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (15:28): It is wonderful to get a question. I have not had a question since the opposition came in here and made the false assertion that a woman had died at the Noarlunga Hospital. So, it is wonderful to at last get a question after the opposition so seriously blundered. But a good question it is nonetheless.

What will happen with Ward C3 is that it will basically become a short-stay ward for mental health patients. It means that instead of a large number of mental health patients having to go through the emergency department, they will be able to be admitted directly and treated directly in a dedicated mental health environment. One of the worst places you can be if you have an acute mental illness is an emergency department. There is enormous stimulation and it is just not an appropriate place for someone who is mentally ill.

There are 20 beds at the moment in the C3 ward. Eighteen of those beds will be transferred to the Glenside campus, so there will be an increase of 18 acute mental health beds at Glenside and those 18 will be taken from the C3 ward. At the moment in the emergency department at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, there are five beds. They are funded mental health beds but they are actually in the emergency department. Those five beds will be transferred to C3, plus the two beds that were always at C3 will remain there, basically creating a seven-bed ward at C3.

No, we will not be creating an emergency department at the Glenside campus. We do not think that is appropriate. My advice from clinicians when we were speaking is that that is not appropriate, that it is appropriate for people suffering an acute mental illness to go straight to one of our major hospitals and not to a dedicated mental health site, so that is what we would be doing.

Essentially that will mean that patients will not have to spend significant periods of time in the emergency department. There will be some mental health presentations that will still have to go through the emergency department to make sure there are no other underlying non-mental health conditions that they need to receive treatment for, in particular if there is intoxication involved, so they will need to be assessed in the first instance, but generally speaking mental health presentations will be able to go straight to C3.

We hope to have that up and running either late this year or early next year, but with the creation of eight extra beds at Glenside campus—so there is a ward there that at the moment has capacity for 20 but is only funded for 12—they will go up to 20 and that should happen next month.