Oakden Mental Health Facility

Mr DULUK (Davenport) (14:55): A supplementary to the Minister for Mental Health: has the minister personally discussed the Ward 18 option with the Chief Psychiatrist?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:55): I have responsibility for the Repat site, and when the issue was first canvassed by the opposition that Ward 18 (the old Ward 18) might be a suitable place to put the Oakden residents, I spoke to senior officers in SALHN about its suitability for that purpose to which they have responded emphatically that it is not for the reasons I described.

You can keep running this flag up the pole as much as you want. The simple answer is that it is not suited to the sorts of long-term requirements for patients at the Oakden facility. It is a short-term acute care facility for relatively short periods of stay. It doesn't have the facilities which are required for people needing the sort of long-term care that residents of the Oakden facility have. You can keep going on as much as you want about it, but they are the clinical facts.