Health Review

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:06): My supplementary, sir, is: how does the minister suggest that patient outcomes are going to be improved if we remove 106 (22 per cent) of the 488 beds in the southern 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) (14:06): Because, as I said in my answer to the first question, we have more beds per head of population than any other Australian state or territory, yet still we have these capacity problems. How is it we have capacity problems when we have more acute beds per head of population than the rest of the country? The answer is simple: it is our bed mix. We don't have enough subacute beds. We have people staying—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Sir, are they interested in the answer, or shall I just sit down? We need more subacute beds and we need fewer acute beds. We have inconsistent lengths of stay. We have people whose rehabilitation does not start early enough. We have not enough day surgery with elective surgery. We have too many elective surgery procedures cancelled. We have people staying inconsistent lengths of stay. We have a situation where your length of stay can largely be dependent upon the day of the week on which you are admitted to hospital. These are all the sorts of things which we are seeking to address through Transforming Health which we hope to have improved and fixed over the coming four years as we go through this process.

The reason we have emergency departments over capacity is not because we don't have enough acute beds, but the acute beds—

An honourable member: Thirteen years.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Thirteen years you've been in opposition, yes, and long may it continue. I'm sure it will. Let's make it 18 years while we are at it, the way we are going. Mr Speaker, it is all of these reasons why we—

The Hon. L.W.K. Bignell: Twenty years.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Twenty years, thank you: the member for Mawson corrects me. It is for all of these reasons that we have capacity issues within our hospitals. It would be nice if the opposition took a bit of an interest in health policy rather than behaving like the cheap ambulance chasers that they are.

The SPEAKER: The minister is not responsible for the opposition. Before the leader asks his next question, I call to order the members for Morphett, Hartley, Heysen and Chaffey, and I warn the member for Morphett for the first time. Leader.