Lyell McEwin Hospital

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (14:36): Again, to the Minister for Health: given that, as of this morning, there were four general inpatient beds available with two patients waiting for a bed—

The Hon. J.M. Rankine interjecting:

Dr McFETRIDGE: —can the minister assure the house that the Lyell McEwin Hospital has enough spare bed capacity to cope with the level of demand?

The SPEAKER: I call the member for Wright to order. Minister.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:37): Yes, I can. On the issues with Lyell McEwin Hospital, what it needs are not necessarily more beds, although I do point out we have significantly increased and we will continue to increase the number of beds at the Lyell McEwin Hospital. We are not closing beds, as the Leader of the Opposition suggests. We are opening additional beds at the Lyell McEwin Hospital. The opposition reduces all this down to how many beds we have in the system, when our health system is in fact far more complex than just a simple equation about bed numbers.

What we need are services at the Lyell McEwin Hospital. That is why we need a second cath lab to deal with heart attack patients at the Lyell McEwin Hospital, and that is why we need a second CAT scanner at the Lyell McEwin Hospital to help diagnose patients who are in the emergency department. The reason why patients are delayed more than they should be at the Lyell McEwin Hospital is not necessarily about beds. It is about access to the various diagnostic services and treatments that those patients need, and the government over the last 10 years has been working very, very hard and investing significant amounts of money into the Lyell McEwin Hospital to improve those things.

I can tell you now that, if we had taken the opposition's approach and left the Lyell McEwin Hospital as it was when we found it, it would have been completely overrun by the population growth in the northern suburbs.