Parliamentary Committees

Public Works Committee: Noarlunga Ambulance Station

Ms DIGANCE (Elder) (12:21): I move:

That the 513^th report of the committee, entitled Noarlunga Ambulance Station, be noted.

The SA Ambulance Service is proposing a new regional ambulance station at Noarlunga to support the delivery of their new model of care. The current infrastructure at Flaxmill Road Morphett Vale is outdated and unable to be redeveloped to meet the current and future needs of this important service. The new model of care sees vehicles predominantly on the road at more times both day and night, with paramedics and specialist paramedics providing emergency treatment in people's homes prior to transport to an appropriate hospital. In some cases, transport to hospital is not necessary, as specialist paramedics can treat patients at their home. It is estimated that 70,000 patients a year are treated this way and avoid going to an emergency department.

In order to support this treatment model, a different infrastructure model is required, namely a hub and spoke model. The model establishes a regional hub station, as is the one proposed for Noarlunga Ambulance Station, that supports smaller spoke stations in the region. The approach will achieve efficiencies that allow for services to be provided that otherwise could not be delivered at each individual station. These services include regional training facilities and the ability to employ specific staff to clean and restock vehicles whilst the crew themselves have their break and de-stress time, particularly after responding to major incidents such as cardiac arrest.

The Noarlunga Ambulance Station hub is designed to accommodate the projected growth in demand over the next 10 years. It will include a purpose-built ambulance station with capacity for 10 vans and four emergency response cars, with the ability to be expanded further in the future if required. Ambulance crew amenities include rest facilities, kitchens and meal areas, locker room, showering facilities, sleeping quarters for staff rostered on night duty, and a secure courtyard. There will be a dedicated training room to be used by all staff in the region, and it will have office facilities, including hot-desks and a secure car park for staff and visitors.

The proposed works for this station are due to commence this year in July 2015. As this is a greenfield development, it is anticipated to be a quick build, with construction to be completed by the end of June 2016. The cost of the project is $4.571 million exclusive of GST.

It is a project that will provide necessary services for the southern suburbs. I thank the committee members in their bipartisan commitment in support of this project. Finally, given this, and pursuant to section 12C of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, the Public Works Committee reports to parliament that it recommends the proposed public works.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (12:25): I commend the 513^th report of the Public Works Committee and I would like to acknowledge the important work and the hardworking committee that attends to the public works needs and what it undertakes.

SA Health referred the Noarlunga Ambulance Station to the committee under requirements of the Parliamentary Committees Act, and SA Ambulance has been transitioning to a new model of service delivery known as the hub and spoke model.

The cost of the new facility on the greenfields site at Noarlunga is $4.571million, with construction to be completed by June 2016. It is important to note that the current facility that the SA Ambulance Service works within is in need of redevelopment and the facility no longer meets its requirements.

The new state-of-the art facility will become an ambulance hub for the southern metropolitan region and will include a purpose-built ambulance station including regional office space, ambulance crew, amenity, rest facilities, training rooms, undercover ambulance facilities, vehicle parking and a secure parking area for staff and visitors.

We heard evidence from a number of witnesses, and concerns were raised around the size of the proposed new station with the increased demand on ambulances. I note that there is land available to expand the station, but we are not building the station to meet the full requirements from day one so that was a concern. Increased transport time for patients with the downscaling of the Noarlunga emergency department was another concern raised by witnesses.

The minister has announced that the state government will not shut the emergency department at the Noarlunga Hospital but it remains unknown as to whether this will remain in its current format. After listening to witnesses it was clear this new ambulance station is much needed, therefore, I commend the report to the house.

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (12:27): I commend the motion and the report from the Public Works Committee and thank the member for Elder for bringing it to this house. I would also like to lend my support to the construction of the Noarlunga Ambulance Station which is going to be a very important development in the southern suburbs.

As members may know, at the moment we have an ambulance station in conjunction with St John at Morphett Vale, which I think holds four or six ambulances. Then there is quite a large gap down to McLaren Vale where there are a couple of ambulances, and then down to Aldinga where there are a couple. In between that we have a large number of houses that have been built in recent years and more and more are being built all the time.

One of our election commitments was to construct this larger ambulance station at Noarlunga replacing the old set-up at Morphett Vale, and to also create a smaller station at Seaford to serve that local area as well. Today we are seeing the first step of that in the construction of the Noarlunga Ambulance Station going ahead, and I understand that the Seaford Ambulance Station is not too far away but SA Ambulance staff are busy trying to locate a good site for that. If SA Ambulance staff are listening to the recordings of this transcript, then I encourage them to be very speedy in their search for that site because that is very much needed as well.

As members have discussed, the site at Noarlunga will be much bigger to enable more ambulances to be placed there, but also greater facilities for training in the southern suburbs. The set-up of the new site, which I was privileged enough to see the plans of with the member for Reynell, the Premier and the Treasurer when the community cabinet was in Christies Beach in the southern suburbs, actually enables ambulances to flow properly right the way through the station, as opposed to the current set-up where a large amount of reversing and parallel parking is required by ambulance drivers and paramedics, which is obviously not ideal in an emergency set-up.

This is a much more modern layout for an ambulance station adopting best practice, and also it has the capacity to further expand as is required. It is also located right next to the Noarlunga Beach Road entry and exit to the Southern Expressway which will enable very quick access around the southern suburbs on our newly duplicated Southern Expressway, so it is a fantastic project and has my full support. I know that the government as well as the member for Reynell are looking at options to try and relocate the St John service which is currently at Morphett Vale to another site as well. I am looking forward to seeing this project come to fruition.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (12:30): Thank you very much to the member for Elder for bringing this report to our attention. As the member for Kaurna spoke about, early in 2014, the then candidate for Kaurna, now member for Kaurna, together with myself and the Minister for Health, Jack Snelling, had the opportunity to go and talk in detail with ambulance officers at the current site at Flaxmill Road in Morphett Vale in the electorate of Reynell about the needs for the future.

We had a very robust conversation with those staff members. We and certainly myself have also had robust conversations over time with the very dedicated and generous volunteers of St John Ambulance who operate out of that Morphett Vale site. It pleases me greatly that, following those conversations, we have listened to those workers and listened to the southern community about the type of ambulance station that we need to service the south into the future.

I am very glad that we are going ahead with those proposals. As the member for Kaurna mentioned, we had the benefit of looking at the plans for the proposed new station when community cabinet was held at the beautiful Christies Beach Surf Life Saving Club in the heart of Reynell just a couple of months ago. Again, I am very pleased to see that we have fulfilled this commitment. I think it is absolutely going ahead in the right way. It is going ahead in the right location, and it really will make a difference to the southern community. So, again, thank you very much to the member for Elder for bringing the report to our attention.

Ms COOK (Fisher) (12:32): I also would like to commend the motion and the report from the committee, and thank the member for Elder for bringing this very important piece of information to the house. As a young child, I clambered through the grapevines and the paddocks that were once land opposite my home—only 500 metres, actually, from my home—where they then built the much celebrated Morphett Vale ambulance centre.

I have fantastic memories of growing up as a teenager and being a member of the Noarlunga cadet brigade. I participated in first aid competitions statewide as a member of that very friendly service and I have got wonderful memories of that, so thank you very much.

Being a St John cadet actually sparked my hunger to serve and advocate for the community. I cannot stress enough how important it is to have the right environment to be able to educate and pass on this sort of knowledge to the next generation whilst also serving your community, so it is very important that this piece of work is going ahead.

It started a lifetime of volunteering for me, and I am not alone in that—that is not special. There are many volunteers in all areas of South Australia who started their volunteering as a youngster in the St John Ambulance brigade. I saw the transition of St John Ambulance to paid workers, now known as SA Ambulance Service, and have seen the professional nature in which those services are now able to be delivered through that format which is now also recognised as part of the university training curriculum.

We see daily the fallout from shiftworker stress, so I also thank the committee for their recommendations and the government for the planning around making this facility much more comfortable and amenable for shiftworkers who are there for very long periods of time overnight and on weekends.

Following my period of time with the St John Ambulance cadets, I then became a registered nurse. Over time, my appetite for that emergency service continued. I participated as a retrieval nurse out of the Flinders Medical Centre intensive care ward and got to know very closely many of the ambulance workers from the Noarlunga brigade based at Morphett Vale. I know how happy they will be to see an additional service down south. When you work in that environment as an emergency services worker, you become very connected and very attached to the stress of taking some time to get to a patient, so I know that it will be appreciated by them as well.

In summary, I just want to say thank you to the committee and to the government for its vision and this opportunity of Transforming Health to roll out such a great improvement in emergency services to the south of Adelaide.

Ms DIGANCE (Elder) (12:35): I would like to thank the member for Chaffey, my fellow member on the Public Works Committee, for speaking. I also thank the local members from Kaurna, Reynell and Fisher for speaking on this very important piece of public works. I think we would all agree that this goes towards a very progressive model in the ambulance service.

I thank all those involved with the Public Works Committee for their committed hard work. In particular, I would like to thank the witnesses from this project and the SA Ambulance Service for their passion, commitment and also innovative progress in their approach in serving the people of South Australia.

Motion carried.