Ambus

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (15:08): My question is to the Minister for Health. How has the ambulance bus been used since it began operations?

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (15:08): It is wonderful to hear the laughter of members opposite, and I would like to thank the member for Light for this very important question. I'm always happy to talk about our hardworking paramedics and the equipment they use to provide care to their patients. Last week, while visiting our beautiful Yorke Peninsula, I got to hear firsthand how valuable the ambulance bus has been in our regional areas. As an aside, I would say that I had the great pleasure of opening the new Maitland dialysis unit, together with the member for Goyder.

Mr Duluk interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Keep interjecting, member for Davenport. Keep them coming because I think in a moment you will be eating your words. At Yorketown Hospital, staff told me about how the ambus has made many visits transferring multiple patients back and forth. It attends multiple hospitals during its journey along Yorke Peninsula. Since it became operational in July, the ambus has been crewed four days a week.

Currently, the bus transfers between two and five patients per journey and will typically undertake one journey a day. Patients may be carried on both legs of the trip. Along with Yorke Peninsula, which I know the member for Goyder is interested in, the ambus has been operating in the Mid North, the Riverland and the Barossa regions. The important aspect of this is that for every multiple patient journey undertaken by the bus vital country ambulance resources are able to maintain emergency response cover in the regions instead of needing to undertake transfers to metropolitan hospitals.

As I move around regional South Australia and I talk to our hardworking volunteer ambulance officers, one of their biggest gripes, and one of the biggest reasons we have difficulty attracting volunteers to our regional ambulance services, is not because of call-outs to emergency responses but the time taken by our volunteers transferring and ferrying patients backwards and forwards from country hospitals into Adelaide. It takes many hours and it takes them off the road. It becomes a big difficulty in negotiating that sort of time off with employers.

We know that routine transfers place a significant demand on our ambulance volunteers, so the value of a resource that helps them to remain in their community cannot be understated. Beyond this, the ambus has the capacity to transport multiple patients in the case of a major incident such as extreme weather events like the recent flooding, bushfires, care facility evacuation, as well as during large-scale events. During the recent extreme weather, the ambus was on stand-by to go to Port Pirie to evacuate patients; thankfully, however, this did not have to happen.

On the weekend, the ambus was one of many of the star attractions at the SA Ambulance Service's open day at the brand-new Noarlunga Ambulance Station. Over 1,200 people braved the weather—

Mr Duluk interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: I just went through how the ambus was being used to ferry patients between metropolitan hospitals and between country hospitals, and how important that was in freeing up our volunteers so they weren't being diverted from looking after their local communities. I am surprised—I credited the member for Davenport with having a little bit of intelligence, but maybe I've overestimated him.

On the weekend, the ambus was one of the star attractions at the Ambulance Service's open day at the brand-new Noarlunga station. Over 1,200 people braved the weather to see how the Ambulance Service goes about its vital work caring for the community. Along with the ambus, there was the MedSTAR paediatric ambulance, motorbike response vehicles and the MAC rescue helicopter. These are all important resources.