Aged-Care Facilities

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:24): What is the government's plan for the eight patients currently staying in acute beds in our hospitals to be moved from those facilities to more suitable long-term placements?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:24): We will be working very hard to make sure that those patients are accommodated appropriately. That would either be through an appropriate private aged-care or not-for-profit aged-care facility that is able to take those patients, or find alternative accommodation. But that is something that we work very assiduously to try to reduce the incidence of. Where we do have patients in our inpatient beds in our hospitals, we work very hard to find the appropriate accommodation for them as quickly as possible.