Royal Adelaide Hospital

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:17): The $176 million transition budget is for 72 days of operating on both sites. So, what you're suggesting is that the other displaced beds would have to be in place much longer than the 72 days accommodated for in the $176 million transition budget.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:17): I think the leader is a little bit confused. The budget allocation for the 72 days doesn't in and of itself provide for extra bed capacity. I would suspect that across the two sites it's probably going to be lower bed capacity; but when you're running across two sites there's maintenance, there's all the fixed costs associated with running a hospital regardless of how many beds you've got there. So, what the budget provision is for that 72 days, and as I've said repeatedly before, we're doing everything we can to try to contract that down to a much shorter period of time, but that's not necessarily activity related. They are just the fixed costs associated with running a hospital across two different sites. We have to run, obviously, power to two sites and have services across two sites. There are certain staffing levels we have to have across two sites regardless of how many beds we have activated across both those sites.