Central Adelaide Local Health Network

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:32): My question is to the Minister for Health. Further to answers he provided in the previous questions regarding delays for accessing mental health inpatient beds in the Central Adelaide region, is the minister aware that there are also significant delays in accessing urgent category 1 elective surgery in the Central Adelaide Local Health Network?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:32): I am more than happy to make comparisons between this government's record on elective surgery and the previous government's. The simple fact is that as at 30 June we had no overdue elective surgery; we have got through the year and completed all our elective surgery lists within the clinical recommended times, a result of which we are very, very proud.

Of course, in coming out of winter we have had to postpone some elective surgery. There is nothing new in that. It is an unfortunate but regular occurrence in wintertime, whatever government is in office. It sometimes has to happen that in order to create capacity in the system when you have people turning up to our emergency departments or in need of hospitalisation, we do have to create capacity. However, I am very confident that as in last year—and, I am pretty sure, the year before that—we will end the year with no overdue elective surgery.