Lyell McEwin Hospital

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:31): Supplementary, sir: what is the procedure when the Lyell McEwin emergency department is on bypass?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:31): The first thing I should say is the ambulance service uses a method called 'load levelling'. When an emergency department is busy in one hospital and another emergency department is not so busy, then the ambulances will sometimes bypass hospitals to take patients to an appropriate hospital. That is not unusual; in fact, I remember, the night a couple of years ago when I did a night shift with the ambulance service, it happened a couple of times. We had a patient in the back of the ambulance and we were referred to another hospital.

So, if that is what the oppositions mean by bypass, it is quite a frequent occurrence and a normal operational thing that happens in our hospitals, because we try to allocate activity on an equal basis between hospitals. If one hospital has very few patients and another hospital is very, very busy, then obviously for the good operational running of our hospitals we will divert the ambulance from the busy hospital to the less busy hospital if it's safe for the patient.

Obviously, patient safety always takes first priority, and if the patient is critically ill and needs immediate attention, then of course they'll go straight to the nearest hospital, but it's not unusual for an ambulance to not necessarily go to the closest hospital but to go to a less busy hospital. If that's what the AMA is referring to, my answer would be that it is a regular occurrence; it would happen on a regular basis.

The SPEAKER: Supplementary, leader.