Health Review

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (16:57): My question is also for the Minister for Health. Can the minister explain how regional health services will be affected by the Transforming Health process?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (16:57): They will be improved, because when I had a meeting with the Rural Doctors' Association, they said to me that the one big problem they have is getting acutely unwell patients in rural areas into a metropolitan hospital bed. The delays they had and the difficulties they sometimes encountered in being able to get a patient from rural South Australia into an acute metropolitan hospital bed was probably the most pressing difficulty they faced.

Any improvements we can make in our metropolitan hospital system are going to have a massive benefit for South Australians living in regional areas. About 30 per cent of patients in Adelaide metropolitan hospitals at any one time are from regional South Australia.