Question Time

Repatriation General Hospital

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:03): My question is to the Minister for Health. Given the Repatriation Hospital was 98 per cent full at 7am this morning, can the minister assure the house that the southern hospital network will not experience even more overcrowding and more ramping when the Repatriation Hospital closes?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:04): Yes, I can. At the moment, there is a significant surge in activities, which of course is putting all our hospitals under high demand. We see these sorts of surges in our system occasionally and I know that our hospitals, with the changes that we are making with the extra capacity, extra theatres and the larger emergency department in the Flinders Medical Centre, are going to be in a stronger position to deal with these sorts of surges, and of course the new Royal Adelaide Hospital will provide significant extra emergency department capacity in our system as well.