Ambulance Employees

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:04): A further question to the Minister for Health: how many of the additional 72 ambulance officers and support staff promised in February 2015 have been deployed?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:05): As I have said previously, we are in the process of recruiting extra ambulance officers and we have had a call out for fully qualified paramedics for some time now. We have had some difficulty recruiting. It has taken a few calls in order to recruit. We have had some success in the latest round, but we will continue to recruit. I haven't got the exact information, but I think we have recruited about 30 extra paramedics. I will check that. These are additional paramedics as part of our recruiting program.

I would also point out that we have also increased the number of interns that we are taking through our intern program this year. When people complete their paramedic qualifications at Flinders University to become a fully qualified paramedic, they have to participate in the intern program, the same way doctors and nurses do, and we have increased the uptake of that. I think we have three intakes a year, so we have increased that number.

There is no doubt that the system at the moment is very, very busy and we do need additional ambulance officers, and that's why we are in the process of recruiting those extra ambulance officers. I hope that we will have those ambulance officers out very quickly.