Queen Elizabeth Hospital

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (15:13): Given that the minister confirmed yesterday that the decisions on respiratory, oncology and cardiac were political decisions, which other Transforming Health decisions were political rather than clinical?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (15:13): There were a number of changes that we made from the original Transforming Health changes that were political changes. I will give you a few examples; one was changes to the Noarlunga Hospital emergency department. The original advice from clinicians was not to have an emergency department, but to have a free-standing, walk-in clinic. There was huge unrest in the community of the southern suburbs about that particular decision, and the government changed its mind. On that issue, the government changed its mind.

Mr Speaker, I will give you another one: the future of the level of the neonatal intensive care unit at Flinders Medical Centre. Under the original Transforming Health reforms, the proposal that came through clinical groups was for that to be reduced from a level 6 to a level 5 facility. Again, the government made a decision not to proceed with that plan. We have refined these plans over a period of time.

Of course, we will always listen and take very careful account of what our clinicians say about these macro changes, but we will also reserve the right where there is particular community concern about these issues. Where those community concerns threaten to undermine confidence in the community in a health facility, then we will change our mind and we will change our policy accordingly. We make no apologies for that whatsoever.