Hospital Beds

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:39): My question is to the Minister for Health. Can the minister confirm the number and time frame for the general medical bed reduction across the two northern hospitals, the Lyell McEwin and Modbury?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:40): The first thing I would say to that is that the number of hospital beds will, in fact, increase as we move activity from central Adelaide to the northern suburbs. We know that almost half of the patients who come from the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network are unable to be treated in the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network; they have to move to other areas of Adelaide. So, as we move activity from, principally, the Royal Adelaide Hospital and The Queen Elizabeth Hospital to the Lyell McEwin Hospital and the Modbury Hospital, across those two hospitals, after these changes are made there will be more beds.

Of course, as you change activity loads, particularly at the Modbury Hospital, and the type of patients and acuity of patients, that doesn't have an effect on the number of beds we need. I think we need to get out of the rhetoric of bed numbers and start talking about activity, because the patient doesn't really care how many beds there are in a hospital; what a patient cares about is, firstly, there being a bed when they need one. If we can achieve that with fewer beds then that is something we should achieve. The second thing we need to be talking about is the amount of activity. The result of these changes is that the Modbury Hospital will be seeing some thousands more additional patients every single year than they are currently seeing.

So, we will be able to do more, in fact, with less. There will be more patients going through the Modbury Hospital, and that means more patients from northern Adelaide will be able to be seen and treated in the northern suburbs, the way they are if you live in southern Adelaide or central Adelaide—more patients who live in northern Adelaide will be able to be seen and treated in northern Adelaide. I would have thought even the opposition would have to admit that has to be a good thing.