Question Time

Hospital Beds

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:28): My question is to the Minister for Health. Can the minister confirm to the house the net loss of inpatient beds that will be created by the planned closure of the Repatriation General Hospital?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:29): No, I can't, because that will be driven by a number of factors. Obviously, we won't reduce the number of beds—we won't reduce any beds—until we are sure that we have the capacity in the system that we need, and there will be other factors that will drive that. There will be a number of moving parts in our health system but I am not in a position at the moment to confirm how many beds. I cannot be more clear than I have. It is my ambition to reduce the number of acute beds we have down close to the national average, but we also need to increase the number of subacute beds that we have (we were underdone), and we are working on mechanisms to enable us to do that, but we do not have a particular target.

The SPEAKER: I call to order the members for Hammond and Bragg. Leader.