Ministerial Statement

Royal Adelaide Hospital

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:49): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: The Premier and I announced yesterday that the new Royal Adelaide Hospital will open on 5 September.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Don't they hate it. You can see the terror in their eyes as they realise that for the last 10 years they have been on the wrong side of the debate. You can hear the terror in the Leader of the Opposition's shrill little squeaks.

This move is the culmination of countless planning discussions with some of the state's brightest clinical and logistical minds in order to be assured that the move will be as safe as possible. The extensive move plan includes learnings from other major hospital moves across Australia and the world and will be led by the SA Ambulance Service, who will draw on their experience of transporting our state's most critically ill patients across our system every day.

Multiple agencies, including health, fire, ambulance, local council, police and transport, have been working together to identify the best travel routes, traffic control, resources and staffing required. Inpatients will be shifted into the state-of-the-art facility over a three-day clinical move that will happen over 4, 5 and 6 September.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: I will lay London to a brick that I am not going to get a question about this today because they do not want to talk about the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. They will talk about anything else, but they want to bury their heads in the sand. They want to pretend it does not exist. The South Australian people will hold you to account for the last 10 years that you have been on the wrong side of this debate.

Inpatients will be shifted into the state-of-the-art facility over a three-day clinical move that will happen over 4, 5 and 6 September. A fleet of additional ambulances and South Australia's multipatient ambulance bus will be available to transport around 100 patients to the new hospital on each day of the move.

At 7am on Tuesday 5 September, the emergency department of the new hospital will start taking new patients. At the same time, the old emergency department will officially close. We will see some same-day services progressively start operating at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital from 14 August. This phased approach will enable staff to ease into the transition and become more familiar with their new workplace before the inpatient move.

Six weeks prior to the inpatient move, the number of patients receiving care at the RAH will progressively ramp down from around 600 to around 300. This will involve our whole health system working together to temporarily transfer activity between sites and the rescheduling of non-urgent adult elective surgery. Moving the RAH will be one of the biggest and most intricate undertakings ever seen in Australia and its success is reliant on the health system working together.

In addition to the inpatient move, the move will relocate 6,000 staff, 1,000 volunteers and students and over 60 clinical services and specialities, as well as 177 years of significant and valuable medical history. Moving to the new site is a huge undertaking for all involved, and I know the community is excited about the new hospital opening its doors in September to inpatients. There has been a huge amount of interest from the community, so I will be holding tour days so the public can see inside this wonderful facility for themselves and that will be in July.

The opening of the state-of-the-art new Royal Adelaide Hospital will be one of the most significant events in this state's history. This is a very exciting milestone and I thank all our clinicians, staff and those who were involved in working to ensure a safe and successful move.