Modbury Hospital

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:12): My question is to the Minister for Health. Can the minister explain to the house the difference between an ICU team and a medical emergency team, why Modbury Hospital is expected to work with a different model or standard from other metropolitan hospitals and whether high-risk chest pain patients are still only one call away from a transfer between Modbury and the Lyell McEwin health service?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (15:12): In most of our hospitals, there is a team available to respond to patients who are deteriorating very quickly and who require an emergency response. So, there is an in-house team, normally, that responds to those events.

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: When the decision was made not to continue having an ICU at Modbury Hospital, a MET team was created to respond to declining patients at Modbury Hospital and that has been in place for some time—I think, a year or so. That MET team has been utilised very rarely. It doesn't happen very often that there are patients who require the service of that team, and it has been difficult in fact to find clinicians who are actually prepared to be on it because it is so underutilised, so it has been—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: Mr Speaker, point of order: the opposition receive 50 questions or more, yet the Leader of the Opposition, without any provocation from me, is barking at me while I attempt to provide a very reasonable response to the member for Florey. I think the member for Florey deserves some respect.

The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition is on two warnings. I have given him latitude because he is the Leader of the Opposition and under my dispensation is entitled to behave a lot worse than other members of the opposition; that is to say, he gets more latitude because of his office.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: So, it has been difficult to appropriately staff that MET team at Modbury Hospital. In fact, it has even been difficult to find locums who are prepared to do it because the service is so underused at Modbury Hospital. Obviously, we do need to have senior clinicians at Modbury Hospital for the occasions—and it is occasions—where you do have a deteriorating patient who needs a senior doctor to be able to take over the case and intervene.

We have been working with our senior clinicians in the emergency department at Modbury Hospital—these are consultants at Modbury Hospital—to provide that service. We are continuing to do that and I am hopeful that that will be how we resolve this matter. But it is not a good use of resources, nor is it actually possible because we just can't find staff to do it, to have senior intensivists, basically, just sitting around essentially doing nothing most of the time for the odd time that we do have a deteriorating patient at Modbury Hospital.

We are hopeful that we can work with our senior emergency department physicians—and the Modbury Hospital emergency department is specialist led—to agree to provide this service to the rest of the hospital.