Modbury Hospital

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:13): My question is to the Minister for Health. Does the minister guarantee that the lack of emergency surgery services at the Modbury Hospital does not create an increased risk to patient safety and care?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:13): I guarantee that the arrangements we now have improve patient safety. You don't want emergency surgery being conducted by people who do it every now and then. The patient safety and patient outcomes are improved by having emergency surgery consolidated at one location in the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network.

The second thing I would say is it is not just emergency surgery; the overwhelming amount of surgery we do in our health system is elective surgery. There are people who have to wait too long to have elective surgery. By having the Modbury Hospital be able to be a dedicated elective surgery hospital, we are seeing significant improvements to elective surgery waiting lists in the northern suburbs.