Health Review

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:16): Where will the additional ambulances be taking patients? If only six, or up to six, ambulances will be going to the Flinders Medical Centre, what are they going to do with the other ambulances that are currently attending the Noarlunga emergency centre because it does not take ambulances after the reforms have gone through?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:17): I don't think the Leader of the Opposition understood what I was saying. Of the presentations currently to the emergency department, only 13 per cent are admitted to hospital. Of those 13 per cent, more than half—about 7 per cent—are in fact admitted not to the Noarlunga Hospital but to the Flinders Medical Centre. So, in terms of the additional ambulances that will need to go straight to the Flinders Medical Centre, it is a relatively small number.

Last week, the director of emergency medicine for the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network, Professor Alan O'Connor, estimated that it would amount to about six ambulances a day. As a result of these reforms, we would expect Flinders Medical Centre to be having an extra six ambulances a day of ambulances that are going straight to Flinders Medical Centre as opposed to going to Noarlunga.

The SPEAKER: Supplementary.