Greenwood, Dr J.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:21): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: I rise today to congratulate Associate Professor John Greenwood on being named South Australia's Australian of the Year. An exceptional plastic surgeon, Associate Professor Greenwood works full time in burns care as the Medical Director of the Adult Burns Service of the Royal Adelaide Hospital. During his 14 years at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, it is estimated that Associate Professor Greenwood and his team have treated more than 20,000 burns patients.

Currently, an average of 450 adult burn patients are treated at the centre each year from across South Australia, the Northern Territory, western New South Wales and western Victoria—an area covering some 2.4 million square kilometres. The centre is currently the only burns centre outside of the United States to have been verified by the American Burn Association and the American College of Surgeons.

Associate Professor Greenwood also runs statewide education services and the only mobile response team for burn injuries in disasters in Australia. He was appointed Member of the Order of Australia following his work leading Australia's only burns assessment team after the carnage of the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people. Under his leadership, the burns assessment team helped save the lives of 67 people.

Following this tragedy, in 2003 Associate Professor Greenwood was instrumental in assisting the 2010 South Australian of the Year, Julian Burton (himself a Bali bombing survivor), to establish the Julian Burton Burns Trust to further education about burn injuries.

Since 2003, Associate Professor Greenwood has been developing a suite of innovative burn care and skin substitute products to replace the skin graft. This process has the potential to remove the need for painful skin grafts involving the harvesting of undamaged skin from other parts of a burn patient's body.

As the citation for the award notes, Associate Professor Greenwood's selfless service to burn patients is improving survival rates and making life better for people around the world. Associate Professor John Greenwood is a credit to his profession and the state of South Australia, and I wish him well in the judging of the Australian of the Year Award on Australia Day 2016.