Hospital Beds

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:31): Supplementary, sir: given the fact that the Repatriation General Hospital has operated at 'code red' for more than 24 hours now, and that is including the 16 flex beds, how does the minister suggest that this southern system will be able to cope with the removal of 126 inpatient beds?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:31): Simply because we have to start doing things far better than we currently are, for example—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: They can scream all they want, Mr Speaker—scream and shout all they want. The simple fact is that in Transforming Health we are attempting to make the system work better. We already have more acute hospital beds per head of population than anywhere else—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: —in Australia.

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Indeed. The question could well be asked of the opposition: how many acute hospital beds do they think that we need? We already have more than anywhere else in Australia. If their answer is that we have to continue to increase the number of acute hospital beds, where will we stop? Will we just continue to increase the number of hospital beds?

The reason why we have overcapacity in our hospitals is not that we do not have enough acute hospital beds. We have more than enough acute hospital beds, but the problem is that we do not use those acute hospital beds very well. For example, we have longer lengths of stay in those acute hospital beds than anywhere else in the country. These are all the sorts of things. In some areas we do more procedures than anywhere else in the country. In some areas we take too long to discharge people from hospital. We also, in some cases, take longer to do tests. We particularly do not do rehabilitation very well, and these are all the sorts of things which we are trying to address through Transforming Health.

We are reconfiguring the system to enable our wonderful clinicians to be able to perform the best they possibly can. And isn't it interesting: the opposition doesn't really have anything interesting to say in this area at all.

Mr Marshall: What a load of rubbish!

The SPEAKER: I call to order the Minister for Health, whose final remarks were most unnecessary, and I call to order the members for Stuart, Davenport, Hartley, Adelaide, Morialta and Mount Gambier. I warn for the first time the leader, the deputy leader and the member for Hartley, and I warn for the second and final time the leader. The leader.