Modbury Hospital

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:20): My question is to the Minister for Health. Is there an operating theatre available for emergency surgery at the Modbury Hospital, and is it available for patients other than overnight elective surgery patients? With your leave and that of the house, sir, I will explain.

The SPEAKER: No, you won't be granted leave under the dispensation. The minister.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:20): No, there is not and there hasn't been—

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Unley is warned for a second and final time, and he should have been named for what he just said.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: We don't have a dedicated theatre at the Modbury Hospital for emergency surgery. If emergency surgery was to be done, then the patient having surgery would have to have their surgery interrupted for that to happen. That's why we transfer patients who need emergency surgery up to the Lyell McEwin Hospital.

As I said before, you don't want emergency surgery being done on you by a team who only does it every now and then. Like all of these highly complex things, you get better patient outcomes when the team dealing with emergency surgery is doing it all the time, not once in a while. That is why it is far safer and leads to better patient outcomes by having emergency surgery consolidated at the one site in the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network.

Modbury Hospital continues to see the same number of patients that it has always seen. In fact, as I said in estimates, I was there a few weeks ago. My son had broken his wrist playing soccer and we had an excellent service. We were seen by the nurse practitioner on the site and we were in and out of that emergency department in one hour. Those sorts of presentations make up the bulk of presentations to our emergency departments, and they are the sorts of things which Modbury is very, very good at and will continue to do, providing those important services to our residents who live in the north-eastern suburbs, of whom I am one.