Royal Adelaide Hospital

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (14:29): My question is to the Minister for Health. Given that the number of urgent cat 1 elective surgery cases has increased by 50 per cent to 85 since the ramp down of the NRAH began, what immediate action will the minister take to ensure that patients receive their urgent surgery on time?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:29): We have only postponed less urgent or non-urgent elective surgery, so cat 1 surgery shouldn't be affected at this stage with the deferrals of surgery we have undertaken in order to reduce the capacity of the Royal Adelaide Hospital. We are very confident that, once the Royal Adelaide Hospital is up and running and we have the extra capacity with the extra theatres at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, we will be able to make inroads into patients who are overdue for their elective surgery.

The 30 June figures were very good in the north and, from recollection, in the south as well with regard to patients overdue for elective surgery, but there is still work to be done in the centre. We will make sure we work very hard to address that and deal as quickly as possible with any patients who are overdue. As I said previously, we are asking patients to please be patient. We do need to ramp down. We do need to reduce capacity at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. That affects not only patients in central Adelaide but also patients in the north and the south because we need to create additional capacity in those hospitals, but we are doing this in a sensible, planned way, taking advice from our clinicians to make sure that at all times patients are kept safe.