Modbury Hospital

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:15): Supplementary, sir: does the minister disregard the advice of the 30 doctors currently based at Modbury who suggest that this number will be around 7,500 patient transfers at the cost of between $7.5 million and $15 million each and every year going forward?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:15): I am not going to comment on a letter that has only just been presented to me in question time, but I will say this: it will be a very small proportion of the people who currently present at Modbury Hospital. We do not expect it to be very large, because we know the current profile of presentations at the Modbury Hospital emergency department. Currently, the number of patients who need to be admitted is relatively small. It is certainly the minority; I think it is overwhelmingly the minority. Overwhelmingly, patients who present to Modbury Hospital are seen, treated and discharged, as they do not require admission. We would not expect that to change.

One thing we do know is that, at the moment, one of the problems we have particularly at the Lyell McEwin Hospital is orthopaedic patients. We do not have, as you would expect in a tertiary hospital, a 24/7 orthopaedic service. That means that, generally, elderly people—elderly ladies—who break a hip have to sit in the emergency department of the Lyell McEwin Hospital. If they have a fall on a Friday and present to the hospital, they have to wait over the weekend, and they can be there until Monday before they see the orthopaedic surgeon so that they can have the surgery that they need.

It is simply not good enough for that to happen—for us to have a 150-hour average wait for orthopaedic patients waiting to present at the Lyell McEwin Hospital. Now, this might not be of any concern to those opposite; they don't care about people presenting to the Lyell McEwin Hospital who need orthopaedic surgery. They do not care about patients waiting in our emergency departments, because they do not give a fig for people who live north of Gepps Cross. They do not give a fig!

The simple fact is the changes that we are making will see, instead of 50 per cent of patients living in the northern suburbs having to travel outside of the northern suburbs for their treatment, we will get it down, with these changes, to around 20 per cent. It means you will get rehabilitation, elective surgery, and emergency surgery when you need it, in the northern suburbs. You will not have to be moved or shuttled around Adelaide as currently happens. Of course, I am not surprised—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: I am not surprised that, for the Leader of the Opposition, that is not of any concern to him at all, but I can assure the house that, on this side of the house, it is a concern that patients have to travel outside of their local area to get the treatment they deserve. I am determined to make sure that our vision of the Lyell McEwin Hospital as a tertiary hospital, able to offer the full suite of services to the hardworking people of the northern suburbs—people the Leader of the Opposition does not care about—ensures that they get the services they deserve.

The SPEAKER: Before the minister commenced to violate standing orders by debating the answer, the member for Hartley had already defied my authority by interjecting and so I ask him to leave, under the sessional order, for an hour because he is a repeat offender.

The honourable member for Hartley having withdrawn from the chamber: