Motions

Noarlunga Hospital

Mr WINGARD (Mitchell) (10:51): I move:

That this house—

(a) acknowledges the critical role that Noarlunga Hospital plays in the delivery of health services to the people of Adelaide's southern suburbs;

(b) notes that, prior to the 2014 state election, the Labor Party promised to invest $31 million in upgrading Noarlunga Hospital but subsequently reduced this funding allocation by more than half; and

(c) recognises the quality and commitment of the front-line staff who work at Noarlunga Hospital and their concern that the government's Transforming Health program is undermining the hospital's long-term future as a general community hospital.

This is another great example of a big promise from the state Labor government and a failure to deliver. We know the failure of Transforming Health, and we know that the government does not like to talk about Transforming Health because South Australians are absolutely sick to the eyeballs of it. This is a very classic example. We know just recently that two ministers have gone in the wake of this Transforming Health fiasco, and I again stress the point that South Australians are absolutely fed up with what is happening.

I have been speaking to my local community about this issue for a long time now and working in conjunction with the Liberal candidate for Hurtle Vale, Aaron Duff. I know that he is also very fed up with the feedback he is getting from people in the southern suburbs about the way Noarlunga Hospital has been treated, the promise that was made and the failure of this government to deliver.

By way of background, Noarlunga Hospital is one of three public hospitals located in SA Health's Southern Adelaide Local Health Network (SALHN). Flinders Medical Centre and the Repatriation General Hospital are the other two. The SALHN delivers public hospital services for more than 350,000 people living in the southern metropolitan area of Adelaide, which is one of the four fastest growing regions in our state, so it really is an important part of South Australia.

Let's have a look at the broken promises from the 2014 state election. Before the 2014 election, Labor promised to spend $31 million on Noarlunga Hospital. That has been cut by more than 60 per cent. I stress the point—massive promise, massive failure to deliver. Labor is now spending just $12 million. They promised $31 million: they are spending just $12 million, mainly to enable Noarlunga Hospital to accept cases from the Repat when it closes. That is why the money has been spent. Money has been spent on Noarlunga Hospital so that it can accept patients when the Repat closes.

The other issue that is also circling there that I want to bring to the house's attention is white ants. It has been reported that white ants were discovered in the roof of the outpatient department of Noarlunga Hospital last year, which will take two to four weeks to fix. They say that there is no significant delay in moving outpatient services from the Repat, but with white ants, who knows? We will keep a close eye on that as well.

I would like to talk about the emergency department. In 2016, the Weatherill government closed 20 per cent of Noarlunga's emergency department treatment bays. They were reduced from 31 to 24. It now has the lowest capacity of any ED in metropolitan Adelaide. Emergency waiting times at Noarlunga Hospital were already below comparative performances with its national peer group. In 2015-16, only 61 per cent of emergency patients were treated within 10 minutes of arrival at the ED of this hospital, compared with the national peer group performance of 77 per cent.

What is happening at Noarlunga is 61 per cent, and on the national scale 77 per cent is the comparison average. Thirty-two per cent of urgent patients were treated within 30 minutes on arrival at the emergency department of this hospital, compared with the national peer group performance of 65 per cent. Again, as South Australia stacks up and as this hospital stacks up, they are way below the national peer group performance.

Ambulances no longer take people to Noarlunga Hospital if their condition is life threatening or they could require a hospital administration. They will go straight past and head to Flinders. The government's own estimate suggests that the average total travel time for Noarlunga patients would more than double, from 11 minutes to 24 minutes, as a result of Transforming Health. In an emergency, those 13 minutes could be the difference between life and death.

No additional emergency bays were opened at Flinders to allow for the increased level of transfers. Only now is the government planning to increase that capacity. The plan was never put in place. They were closing down these emergency beds at Noarlunga and they were not increasing the capacity at Flinders. It has taken a lot of noise to get the government looking at this and moving in that direction.

Transforming Health is hitting the Flinders Medical Centre hard as well; we know that. There has been a dramatic 4.5 per cent decline in patients seen within four hours. But emergency department capability is not enough. The most important thing is patient flow, especially discharging people when they no longer need acute care. In relation to children's emergencies, while the children's area in Noarlunga Hospital's emergency department has been made more child friendly, any child needing emergency or major surgery has to be transferred to Flinders.

Let's also look at hospital services. Under Transforming Health Noarlunga Hospital will no longer be a general community hospital. It will be a regional day surgery centre with a focus on geriatric services. Around half the beds at Noarlunga Hospital will be for geriatric services. No acute or major surgery will be performed at the hospital, and the acute medical ward will be closed. People from the inner southern suburbs will need to travel to Noarlunga for day surgery or for geriatric services. People from the outer southern suburbs will need to travel to Flinders Medical Centre or beyond to get care that requires overnight admission.

In terms of the private hospital closure, under Transforming Health Noarlunga Private Hospital's 26-bed Myles Ward will be closed and its 15 single-bed rooms will be used for elderly patients currently accommodated at the Repat. The closure of the private hospital will disadvantage southern residents who would prefer to stay in a private hospital closer to their home. We can see that the south is really being hit hard. This closure of the private hospital is just to allow the Repat patients to go down there because of the closure of the Repat.

In relation to the southern hospital networks, before the 2014 election Labor also promised that it would never ever close the Repat. Labor now plans to close it by the end of the year. We know the uproar that that has caused. The Repat hospital has handled 87 per cent of the urology elective surgery operations and 62 per cent of the orthopaedic elective surgery operations undertaken in the southern network.

More than two years after the government announced that it would close the Repat, it is still not clear where and how some of its specialty services will be accommodated. It is still not clear where those urology and orthopaedic elective surgeries, which the Repat was doing a very large majority of, will go. We know that people are up in arms about this lack of planning and this lack of foresight from this state Labor government, all under the Transforming Health banner. SA Health is planning to lose 117 inpatient beds and 240 front-line hospital staff positions. That is a major hit to the hospitals in the southern networks.

The recent crisis across our emergency departments is further evidence that Adelaide's hospital network is not ready and will be unable to cope with the closure of the Repat. Disappointingly, on the other side of the chamber I hear nothing from the member for Elder and the member for Fisher, who have stood by as the closure of the Repat has happened. This lack of delivery on a promise on Noarlunga Hospital has been allowed to go through. This state Labor government promises plenty but fails to deliver for the people of South Australia, more specifically in this case the people of the southern suburbs.

The state Liberal team have been very clear on our position on the Repatriation General Hospital and have announced plans to ensure that a genuine health precinct continues to operate on the site of the Repat hospital. We think that is very important. If elected in March 2018, we will issue a ministerial development plan amendment that will zone the site for healthcare services. That is what we want to see if we are elected in March 2018. We will also take further action to maintain the Daw Park site as a genuine health precinct by ensuring that SA Health works with ACH or any future owner of the site to explore best use and best value services in the health precinct, including SA Health public health services.

Our position on Noarlunga Hospital is that the state Liberal team does not support the closure of the Repat or the downgrading of the Noarlunga ED. We believe in a network of fully equipped emergency departments and general community hospitals. As the 2018 general election approaches and it becomes clear what can be salvaged, we will outline our plans for Noarlunga Hospital, but it is clear that now is the time to save Noarlunga Hospital. It is incredibly disappointing that this has been allowed to happen.

As I pointed out from the get-go, before the 2014 state election the bottom line and the big figure number that the Labor government promised to spend on Noarlunga Hospital was $31 million, yet that has been cut, as I said, by more than 60 per cent. Only $12 million is actually being spent on this hospital. That is a great example of how this government operate and what they do and the way they treat, in particular, in this case, the people of the south.

As I mentioned, as I doorknock people say that they have an affinity with Noarlunga Hospital. It is in their local region, but they know that if they go in an ambulance and they have to go to an emergency department and potentially stay overnight in hospital, the ambulance will take them straight past Noarlunga Hospital and take them to Flinders. People of the southern suburbs are left scratching their head about this, and I can understand why.

As I said, working with Aaron Duff and being out in the suburbs and doorknocking and engaging with the community, as I have over a long period of time, I know that people are sick of being treated like fools—being told before the election, 'We will spend $31 million to upgrade Noarlunga Hospital,' and then finding out, in the cool, hard reality of day, that they are only spending $12 million, and that is so they can relocate patients from the Repat hospital, which, before the election, the government had said they would keep open. At no stage before the by-elections did they come out and say that they would close the Repat. In Fisher, as well, the government kept that very secret.

In fact, the other day we heard the Premier saying that the Repat is not closing and that he is just moving services. As I have pointed out here today, where those services are being moved is still very much up in the air. People do not really know. Urology is a key case in point: the Repat does a lot of work with urology patients, and the government cannot tell us where all that work is going to happen. Sadly, this is what South Australians have become accustomed to, with this state Labor government under the current Premier. They promise and they talk up a really big game and then spin their way out of it.

To know that the Repat is closing, yet to have the Premier go on the radio and say, 'No, it's not closing,' is probably as big a spin as I have ever heard. We know that the Treasurer is big on spin at every possible turn when it comes to electricity in South Australia, given the fact that we have the highest priced electricity in the nation under his watch and that they have blown up power stations that are there to supply affordable and reliable electricity to our state, and this, under the ideology of getting wind power and solar power that does not have consistency of supply. We know all that and we hear the Treasurer spin around that, but this one from the Premier, saying that he has not closed the Repat, is just absolutely beyond belief.

I know it has been a hot topic on radio stations right around Adelaide. I really shudder when I hear these sorts of things from the Premier. We know that the Repat is closing. It is going to be closed by the end of the year. That is what this state Labor government wants to do to South Australia. We can see from these numbers how much of an impact that is going to have on the South Australian people, especially, again, the people of the south. These are people who are often overlooked in projects, and I have outlined a number of those in this place on plenty of occasions across the time.

When it comes to health, though, this is something that is vitally important for our region. This so-called promise to upgrade Noarlunga Hospital has not happened. In fact, the $31 million that was promised was actually reduced by 60 per cent and now only $12 million is being spent. Those numbers need to be reiterated, because it is a massive reduction in a commitment made before an election.

It is funny how this state Labor government has a history of doing that. Again, before the Fisher by-election they did not talk about closing the Repat, and then after that election here we are, the Repat is closing and no South Australians knew about it. Not to mention the fact that over time this state Labor government has said, 'We will never ever close the Repat,' a gift from the federal government as well.

That is why our push is to make this a health precinct. We want to do all we can to salvage that. The big fear is that there will be nothing left to salvage post the end of this year as the government moves forward in closing down the Repat and the services that are offered. The questions remain: where will these services go, and how will the people of the south get these services and be looked after in this area?

Urology is one that I talked about. When I doorknock the people all around the southern region, they know that if it is Noarlunga now what is going to happen to Flinders in the future. Why should they go straight past Noarlunga Hospital, the hospital they know, the general community hospital that is there for them and where they have had comfort and known that they will have the services that they need? Now, when it comes to emergency situations, they will be bypassed and they will head to Flinders.

This motion outlines what this government is about and what they do and how. Before an election, they make one promise, but after an election they fail to deliver. They need to be called to account henceforth. I recommend this motion to the house.

Ms COOK (Fisher) (11:06): I think it is no surprise that we are opposing this motion from a government point of view. Noarlunga Hospital is here to stay. Since 2014, the state government has invested $12 million in upgrading and improving its facilities. The now completed capital works at Noarlunga Hospital have transformed it into a dedicated elective day and 23-hour surgery hub for the southern suburbs, which will continue to provide high-quality health care to its patients.

Recently completed upgrades include the new day surgery unit, two new state-of-the-art operating theatres and a first-stage surgery recovery area. This means Noarlunga Hospital now has four theatres dedicated to day and 23-hour surgery and two that are dedicated to scopes. We have also seen an increase from eight to 12 chairs in the second-stage surgery recovery area. These upgrades will see the number of elective surgery procedures provided at the hospital nearly double, enabling more people in the southern suburbs to receive day surgery closer to home.

We know that cancellation of surgery causes a lot of anxiety, not just to people within the metropolitan area, but particularly people from rural areas who come to access the high technological procedures that are delivered in our hospitals. If members opposite would like at any point to talk about the process by which surgery happens in our hospitals and the reasons for many of the cancellations, the flow of patients through the hospital and how having the dedicated day and 23-hour surgery units will improve this flow, I would be very happy to spend time talking to them about that and bringing them up to speed.

Mr Pengilly: You're not the minister.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Odenwalder): Order!

Ms COOK: I would be happy to talk at any time. The new purpose-built renal dialysis unit opened at Noarlunga Hospital early last year and is providing improved care for dialysis patients from the southern suburbs. The unit provides around 5,000 dialysis treatments each year. The community emergency department at Noarlunga Hospital, staffed by doctors and nurses, continues to provide emergency care to the local community, including paediatric emergency care, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

As happens now, any patient who self-presents to the emergency department will be assessed and treated by a clinician, with a large majority of patients being discharged to home. If a patient requires complex or life-saving care they will be stabilised and transferred to another public hospital, like the Flinders Medical Centre. Patients will not pay for this ambulance transfer, and this is no different to what has been going on in the past few decades at Noarlunga Hospital. There is no change.

We have also seen the construction of dedicated spaces for children and their families in the emergency department so that children feel more comfortable in a hospital setting. Noarlunga Hospital will continue to provide mental health and outpatient services as well as subacute inpatient services, with a focus on older people. In fact, while there will be a different profile of beds at Noarlunga Hospital there will not be less beds. There will be nearly 50 subacute inpatient beds for public patients, depending on demand at any given time, with a focus on older people. Noarlunga Hospital will continue to provide public mental health inpatient services and the number of these beds is unchanged.

Further, outpatient clinics will continue, with the range of services offered expanding at Noarlunga Hospital and at Noarlunga GP Plus. Cardiology and respiratory clinics have recently transitioned to Noarlunga GP Plus and other outpatient clinics, including gastroenterology and associated dietetics, general surgery and plastic surgery, with associated hand therapy, will commence at Noarlunga Hospital from early October 2017—so we are looking forward to seeing this happen only next week. An increase in chairs in the day infusion suite is also planned, from three to nine chairs, ensuring more treatment for the southern suburbs residents who require blood transfusions closer to home.

In May this year, an open day was held at Noarlunga Hospital, which was very successful. It attracted over 500 members of the public, all of those pretty much from the southern suburbs community. It provided them with the opportunity to see some of the new features of the hospital and talk first-hand with staff about the changes. The overwhelming positive feedback received on the day showed that people were very impressed with the upgrade and the investment at Noarlunga Hospital.

I have personally spoken to a number of people from the southern community who congratulated us on the work we have done at Noarlunga Hospital, and who were very surprised to actually see the upgrades that were happening and the improvements at Noarlunga Hospital, because they had been told by members of the opposition team that Noarlunga was closed. They were most surprised to see it open and how good it was looking.

The opposition should be reminded that the previous commitment of $31 million for Noarlunga Hospital was suspended with the federal Liberal government's cruel announcement in 2014 that it would cut a massive $655 million in health funding. At that time funding for a number of planned infrastructure investments was set aside in a Health Capital Reconfiguration Fund while the state government reassessed its investments in light of the devastating federal cuts. This fund was quarantined.

Based on subsequent clinical service planning, which considered projected population health needs, the fund supported more than $260 million in significant upgrades and new facilities across the metropolitan hospitals, including Noarlunga Hospital, announced in early 2015. This included $185.5 million to build new, state-of-the-art facilities and improve and upgrade facilities at the Flinders Medical Centre. As members know, the Flinders Medical Centre and Noarlunga Hospital complement each other, ensuring residents from southern Adelaide have access to a full range of public hospital services 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Flinders Medical Centre provides care for patients with complex and acute medical conditions who need admission to hospital, as it is fully equipped with specialty technology and diagnostic and support services, as well as a wide range of specialties. Services have been reconfigured across both hospitals to ensure they are providing the right place for our patients, leading to improved patient outcomes.

We have recently announced a further $3.5 million investment in two extra operating theatres at the Flinders Medical Centre as well as an additional $3 million to expand the emergency department with 12 additional cubicles. This will provide world-class emergency and surgical care for the growing southern suburbs. On Sunday, I accompanied the new Minister for Health in the other place, minister Peter Malinauskas, on a tour of several of these areas within the Flinders Medical Centre, and the staff were very happy to share—

Members interjecting:

Ms COOK: —the benefits of the upgrades and the changes that were happening in terms of patient flow and the ability to provide world-class care.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Fisher, sit down. I would like to remind members of the standing orders. This is the first week of televised proceedings. Just so that everyone understands, members on their feet are entitled to be heard in silence. That courtesy will be extended to every member. I would ask members on my left particularly to observe the standing orders.

Ms COOK: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I think some people cannot handle the truth. The brand-new $5.3 million SA Ambulance Service station at Noarlunga became fully operational in September 2016 and serves as the regional headquarters for the south, with capacity for more than 50 staff and up to 18 ambulance vehicles. We are investing $15 million to hire 72 additional paramedics and support staff and to expand our ambulance fleet by 12 vehicles. Many of these new staff have recently started internships, and I am very pleased to see that. Congratulations to all of them.

The state government absolutely recognises the quality and commitment of the front-line staff who work at Noarlunga Hospital. Many of them are my friends. They work hard every day to serve the southern community. They are very proud of the work they do and very disappointed to hear all the negativity about the healthcare system. Noarlunga Hospital continues to be a very important part of our health system, providing modern and world-class health care.

Our southern community can be confident that they will continue to receive the high standard of health care they deserve. While the member for Reynell, the member for Kaurna and the member for Mawson and I are in this place, along with the member for Elder, they will have a voice that is very loud and very direct between the clinicians and the residents of the south and the government.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Davenport wishes to be heard.

Mr DULUK (Davenport) (11:16): Thank you, Madam Independent Deputy Speaker—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, that is out of order.

Mr DULUK: I would like to make a few comments in relation to the very good motion moved by the member for Mitchell. Listening to the contribution of those opposite, it certainly sounds like a government-paid ad for the next state election because the reality is that what this government has done to health services in the south is an absolute disgrace. It has trashed wonderful services in the south—services used by over 350,000 people per year between Noarlunga, Flinders and what of course was the Repat, which is going.

Ladies and gentlemen of South Australia, you should not believe anything this government says in regard to health. At the last election, they promised to spend $31 million on Noarlunga Hospital. That has not been spent at all, and apparently residents of the south have to be grateful for a $12 million upgrade. For years, the mantra of the government opposite has been, 'We'll never close the Repat.' That has been closed by this government.

We have seen for two elections in a row the government commit funding to upgrading The QEH hospital. We have not seen that investment. We have seen promises from the government, Deputy Speaker, for the hospital in your patch, the Modbury Hospital, and we have seen those over the years never come to fruition. So in the lead-up to an election—and we have an election less than six months away—we see the government come out and make all these promises for what they will spend on capital investment in hospitals in communities, and by hook or by crook, the day after the election, they scrap those plans and say that it is all too hard and they do not come through with their promises.

People of South Australia, people of the south, people in the new electorate of Hurtle Vale, do not listen to the Labor Party. Do not listen to the government: look at their record. Do not look at their words: look at their action. Their action is constantly one of let-down and disappointment when it comes to looking after the health needs of South Australians in the south.

As I said, before the 2014 election Labor promised to spend $31 million on Noarlunga Hospital. That promise has been cut by more than 60 per cent and Labor is now spending $12 million, mainly to enable Noarlunga to accept cases, essentially, to cover the closure of the Repat. Essentially, the government is white-anting services at Noarlunga, not improving them, and that is the problem with this government.

In 2016, the Weatherill government closed 20 per cent of Noarlunga's emergency department treatment bays. They are down from 31 to 24. It now has the lowest capacity of any emergency department in metropolitan Adelaide. If you believe the member for Fisher's contribution, you would think it was the busiest emergency department in the state with the greatest number of available services to treat South Australians. In fact, it is quite the opposite: it is the lowest performing ED in South Australia in terms of capacity. Emergency waiting times at Noarlunga were already below comparative performances with its national peer group in 2015-16.

Only 61 per cent of emergency patients were treated within 10 minutes of arrival at the Noarlunga ED, compared with the national peer group performance of 77 per cent, and 32 per cent of urgent patients were treated within 30 minutes of arrival at the emergency department of this hospital, compared with its national peer group performance of 65 per cent. So I say to the government: what are you actually doing to improve the turnaround times for people living in the southern healthcare network and using the services of Noarlunga?

Ambulances no longer take people to Noarlunga Hospital if their condition is life threatening or they could require hospital admission. They have to go to the Flinders Medical Centre, the crowded footprint that is the Flinders Medical Centre. The government's own estimate suggests that the average total travel times for Noarlunga patients will more than double, from 11 minutes to 24 minutes, as a result of Transforming Health or, as we like to call it, Trashing Health.

You will notice, Deputy Speaker, that over the next six months you will not see this government refer to Transforming Health. That has been dust binned: minister Snelling got the knife, the member for Taylor got the knife, we got the new slick future leader of the Labor Party, the Hon. Peter Malinauskas, coming out with his soft, dulcet tones trying to sell health. We have two nurse clinicians promoted to the front bench, and you will find that there is no more Transforming Health on the Labor Party's agenda.

Mr Pengilly: Former.

Mr DULUK: Former. Transforming Heath does not exist—it never existed, it was just made up—because we are in the last six months of an election campaign and they know how toxic it was. That is the hypocrisy of the Labor Party and all those members opposite, their hypocrisy on this whole issue.

Where were they when Transforming Health was being initiated? They were nowhere to be seen. They allowed these huge cuts to be on the agenda, they allowed the Repat to be closed and they allowed the degradation of services at community hospitals. They have seen the absolute annihilation of Country Health: 'Oh, six months out from election, better get rid of that, get a new minister, everything's hunky dory. Do sweetheart deals, do press conferences at Modbury Hospital, do press conferences at Flinders Medical Centre every other week to try to con the people of South Australia.' The people of South Australia are not stupid: they know what is going on.

When I am doorknocking with the member for Mitchell—we have been doing a lot of work with Aaron Duff, who is our candidate in Hurtle Vale—we hear what the people of Woodcroft are saying. We know they are sick to death of lies with regard to Transforming Health and what they are doing in relation to the cutting of services. When I am out with the candidate for Davenport in Aberfoyle Park and Happy Valley, the Repat, and the closure of those services, is mentioned time and again. People know that the Labor government has led them up a garden path, and they are not going to buy their rubbish anymore.

Under Transforming Health, Noarlunga Hospital will no longer be a general community hospital. It will be a regional day surgery centre with a strong focus on geriatric services. Around half of all beds at Noarlunga Hospital will be for geriatric services. No acute or major surgery will be performed at the hospital and the acute medical ward will be closed. People from the inner southern suburbs will need to travel to Noarlunga for day surgery or for geriatric services. People from the outer southern suburbs will need to travel to Flinders Medical Centre or beyond to get care that requires overnight admission.

The way the government has focused health care in the south is completely at odds with the growth of population in the south. We are seeing increasing population growth beyond Noarlunga, through Seaford and Aldinga, and at the same time we are ensuring that the people who are moving into those growth areas will not be able to access proper healthcare services at their nearest metropolitan hospital. They will have to travel further to the Flinders Medical Centre. Of course, those in my community in the inner south, who have a strong affiliation with the Repat Hospital, will no longer be able to access those services.

Under Transforming Health, Noarlunga's private hospital 26-bed Myles ward is being closed, and it is now a 15 single-bed room used for elderly patients currently accommodated at the Repat. The reality is that we are not seeing improved services for residents of the south; we are just seeing services being transferred from one site to another. I suppose that sits very well with the Premier's analogy of what is happening at the Repat: 'We're not closing the Repat, no. It's essentially staying open. You just have to go somewhere else.' It is a bit like saying, 'We're still making Holdens in South Australia. You just have to buy one from Claridge,' but of course it was imported from overseas. That is the same argument that the government is using.

Before the 2014 election, Labor also promised that it would never, ever close the Repat. As you know, Deputy Speaker, now Labor plans to close it by the end of the year. The Repat hospital has handled 80 per cent of urology elective surgery operations and 62 per cent of orthopaedic elective surgery operations undertaken in SALHN. More than two years after the government announced that it would close the Repat, it is still not clear where and how some of these services will be accommodated.

SA Health is planning to lose 117 inpatient beds and 240 front-line hospital staff positions across SALHN. I notice that was not included by the member for Fisher in her contribution this morning—240 hospital staff positions will be gone across SALHN. They are colleagues she has worked with, disappeared because of this government's decisions. The recent crisis across our emergency departments is further evidence that Adelaide's hospital network is not ready for and will be unable to cope with the closure of the Repat.

Of course, for members of our community there is an alternative, that is, the election of a Marshall Liberal government, a Marshall Liberal government that actually does care about community hospitals and community health. Whether it be in Port Lincoln, in Victor Harbor, or at the Repat, or in Murray Bridge, we do care about community health and we understand that it is important. Deputy Speaker, I know that in your community we announced a very strong policy in relation to ensuring that Modbury Hospital remains a very much loved and serviceable and usable community hospital and, of course, we have plans for the Repat site as well because we want to ensure that it remains a genuine health precinct and that health services continue to operate on that site.

If elected in March 2018, we will amend the DPA for the zoning of the Repat. We will also take further action to retain that Daw Park site as a genuine health precinct by ensuring that SA Health works with ACH to explore the best use, best value services in the health precinct, including SA Health public health services. This is in stark contrast to the government: it wants to see it closed, it wants to flog off the site, it wants to sell it for housing and it wants to close Pasadena High. This government is all about closing and privatisation. That is the mantra of this Labor government at the moment. South Australians need a new alternative. They need a Marshall Liberal government to ensure that services remain where people want them.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:26): I rise to support this motion by the member for Mitchell in support of the critical health services at Noarlunga Hospital, acknowledging the vital services those staff provide and the contributions they make at Noarlunga , expressing the fear they have of what is happening with Transforming Health but also acknowledging the cuts Labor has made in bringing the funding for Noarlunga Hospital from $31 million down to around $12 million. This goes on and on with health in this state.

We have seen the third most expensive build in the world with the $2.4 billion new Royal Adelaide Hospital, and what do we see when it opens? Sheer chaos—not enough instruments, not enough sterilisation. The RAH-bots are not roaring up and down the corridors, nor are they running into each other. They have their own little corridors behind the walls to deliver the food. We know that the hospital was not ready for the move. It needed to be delayed so that procedures could be put in place so that the hospital could function appropriately.

We also know that, even after the state Labor Party and the Premier proudly announced that they would not be closing down any health facilities in this state, they have presided over the closure of the Repatriation General Hospital in Daw Park and this is outrageous. We saw Vietnam veterans and other veterans campaigning on the steps of this place—

An honourable member: They are still campaigning.

Mr PEDERICK: —yes, they are still campaigning—for many hundreds of days. For well over 100 days they camped out the front of this place, and good on them for making a point, these servicemen who served our state and our country—to think that the federal government were in charge of the Repat hospital and essentially gifted it to the state and now it has been thrown away as if it is something we do not want.

The most bizarre thing in the conversation around the Repat hospital is the fact that I have been told that it was the former health minister's idea to centralise services more in South Australia, but what he really meant was that he was centralising services in Adelaide. Essentially, for all those veterans who live outside Adelaide the Repat hospital was exactly fine where it was. There was no reason to shift it. There were many excellent wards and services in place at the Repatriation General Hospital. I was a patient there myself and there was excellent service by the staff there. Again, we see Labor come over the top and decide, 'Oh, no, we don't like that. We'll just close it off as part of our Transforming Health program and kill it off.'

How well has Transforming Health gone? It has gone nowhere. It is an absolute disgrace that with three years of work in the most budget-heavy portfolio in this state—which takes at least 30 to 35 per cent of the funding of the whole state budget—on a political whim a decision was made within 24 hours without even consulting health professionals to trash Transforming Health or at least that section of it. We do not know whether other bits of Transforming Health will go on and, really, what can you believe will go on?

We have seen the excellent work of the Hon. Stephen Wade in the other place. He saw two ministers off—great work. That was because of the chaos inside health, the chaos in moving to the new Royal Adelaide Hospital and the chaos in mental health and older persons facilities, like Oakden. We have seen political opportunism in regard to the dumping of Transforming Health, which was chaotic. It would essentially see patients, who were perhaps suffering from a stroke, taken by paramedics somewhere on a weekday, only to find when they rolled down the chart on the back door of the ambulance that the specialist was somewhere else. It was a disaster waiting to happen. The only good thing about dumping the Transforming Health plan is that it has been dumped.

What we have seen, and obviously with some internal polling and focus groups within the Labor Party, is that this was all trash. It was Trashing Health. So all of a sudden they have panicked: 'We have to put these services back. We have to put them back in the Lyell McEwin. We have to put them back in The Queen Elizabeth Hospital. We have to make sure we have the front-line services we need in the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.' And look at the politics out at Modbury with the Deputy Speaker: she has seen off Jack Snelling, the member for Playford. It is interesting how Modbury has played out and how the politics has played out in that area. We have seen a big scalp go in regard to Modbury Hospital.

We on this side of the house support Modbury Hospital. We support all the hospitals throughout South Australia. It is just outrageous that you have a government that flips and flops on health policy, as we see here with Noarlunga, where they just cut funding from $31 million to $12 million for the good people of the southern suburbs. Others who are in that area may be caught up in an accident. Anyone could be caught up and need to attend that hospital. Sadly, as we have heard from speakers today, those services have been cut. They have been decimated as part of this government's program in regard to Transforming Health.

The problem we have, as indicated yesterday when we were talking about country health issues in this place, is that a lot of health people love to speak up. A lot of those front-line nurses and practitioners would love to have a lot more information come out and would love to give us more information, but they are absolutely threatened with their jobs. What sort of society do we live in where people cannot speak freely? We on this side of the house are about free speech. We are about the right to stand up for your rights. But if you work in the health system, if you say anything out of place, you are gone. You are out of it. You will be sacked if you bring up anything that is going on.

Look at the chaos that is EPAS, the electronic recording system that is being rolled out in health in South Australia. What a disaster that is. It is heading towards costing the same amount of money that it cost to build Adelaide Oval. I find that confronting. It is heading to over half a billion dollars. After spending all this bad money, I reckon I would be pulling the pin, but I am told that there is so much bad money being spent that we will just keep funding dollars into this program that just is not working.

It has not worked at the Repat, it has not worked at Port Augusta, and guess what? In the new Royal Adelaide Hospital—the third most expensive build in the world—it is not in place. The floors of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital were not built strong enough to carry paper records. Well, what are we going to do? Punch all the records into our iPhones as we walk between wards and beds in the hospital? It is outrageous!

I have been informed that the targeting of the proposed date for the EPAS rollout in the Royal Adelaide Hospital is March next year—funny about that. It might happen just before the election, but do not hold your breath. In the meantime, there are some bunkers or containers somewhere. We will employ a heap of couriers, I guess, and they will be running between these bunkers or these containers bringing the records to and fro from the third most expensive building in the world, which is just not operating efficiently because they do not even have the record-keeping system in a way that will work.

This is the disaster that is happening in health in this state and it is affecting hospitals right across this state. What faith can country hospitals have? What faith can they have in a system when you have a Labor government that just flips and flops. They take no notice of the country anyway, and we know that. The Premier has made that point himself. He said, 'Well, there's no votes in it, so who cares?' He said the same thing when they knocked back $25 million for the diversification fund for the River Murray, so why would they care about the $150 million backlog in maintenance upgrades in country health? Why would they care? It is outrageous.

As a local member, when you have an official visit with a health minister, they go through all these protocols so that everything is nice for you to see, but when you live in a community you visit these hospitals because either your child has had an accident or you need some health care and you just go there anyway and see what is going on.

The motion of the member for Mitchell has my full support. All he wants, and all we on this side of the house want, is appropriate health care for the people of the south and the people who are traveling through the south and need emergency health care at Noarlunga Hospital. We are here also to support the good staff at that hospital who are frustrated at the chaos they are involved in and also frustrated that they cannot speak out because they are in fear for their jobs.

Mr WINGARD (Mitchell) (11:36): I rise to close the debate and sum up some of the comments that were made. First, I will look at some of the comments made by the member for Fisher. Let's have a look at what she did say, and I quote, 'Noarlunga Hospital is here to stay.' We remember past quotes from the South Australian Labor government saying that they will never close the Repat hospital. We have quotes saying that Noarlunga Hospital is here to stay and they mirror up with quotes saying that the Repat hospital will never close, and we know that this state Labor government is closing the Repat hospital. It is very interesting that we come out and make these big, bold statements.

She went on to say that Noarlunga Hospital was a surgery hub for day surgery and 23-hour surgery. Heaven forbid if your surgery goes for 24 hours or 25 hours; it is no good for you. It is a 23-hour surgery hospital. There are eight to 12 chairs for elective surgery as well. They were some of the things that she did say, but let's have a look at what the member for Fisher did not say and some of the facts about Transforming Health.

I did notice that she did not mention Transforming Health. She had previously been a champion for Transforming Health, but you will not hear anyone on the other side of this chamber talk about Transforming Health because of its failures and because the people of South Australia know that Transforming Health is a failure and a dog. Noarlunga Hospital is just one case in point, in terms of Transforming Health's failure being exposed.

What the member for Fisher also did not say is that Noarlunga Hospital will no longer be a general community hospital. She talked about the 23-hour surgery and the restrictions there, but she did not say that it will no longer be a general community hospital. It will be a regional day surgery centre with a strong focus on geriatric services. Around half the beds at Noarlunga Hospital will be for geriatric services.

She also did not say that no acute or major surgery will be performed at the hospital. The member for Fisher did not mention that. She did not mention that the acute medical ward will be closed. She also failed to mention that people from the inner southern suburbs who need to travel to Noarlunga for day surgery or geriatric services will be bypassed and sent on to the Flinders Medical Centre if they have a major issue or a major problem. The member for Fisher really did add a lot of spin to what is going on here, much like the Premier does and much like the Premier did the other day when he said that the Repat is not closing. It is disappointing to see what this government does.

Fundamentally, as I mentioned from the outset and as this motion mentions, the government promised to invest $31 million in Noarlunga Hospital and that has now been downgraded to $12 million—a 60 per cent cut in the commitment that this state Labor government made. They will blame everyone else, but I think the South Australian public is sick of the blame game. They are sick of the spin and the rhetoric that comes from this state Labor government.

Another thing that the member for Fisher failed to mention in her speech was the Repat hospital, which fits in this southern network of hospitals—Noarlunga, the Repat and Flinders all working together, servicing 350,000 South Australians in the south. There was not one mention of the Repat closing and not one mention of the services going from that site. The government, those on the other side, the state Labor Party, do not like to talk about Transforming Health or closing the Repat, but they are the facts; that is what is happening.

I would like to commend the member for Davenport for the very good point he made in his speech. He spoke about the big rhetoric from the government on the other side—the big promises and the small outcomes. This is just one example of what they do so often. As the member for Davenport said, 'Don't look at SA Labor's words, look at their actions.' That could not be more true in this case: a $31 million promise has been diluted down to a $12 million outcome—a 60 per cent cut for the people of the south, centred around Noarlunga Hospital.

The member for Hammond spoke about the wonderful work of the people on the front line, which we on this side of the chamber feel strongly about and which is so vitally important in our health service area. This state Labor government wants to cut those front-line numbers and services at Noarlunga Hospital. That is not what we on this side of the house are about, and I commend the member for Hammond for the wonderful points he made.

Modbury Hospital was touched on briefly, and I know that you, Deputy Speaker, are very passionate about this as well. We have seen the backflips that have come about from the pressure we have put on the government. You too, Deputy Speaker, have been involved in putting that pressure on the government and I commend you for it. This government promises one thing but delivers very little when it comes to outcomes. The South Australian public is awake to it and aware of it and I think they have had a gutful. I commend the motion to the house.

Ayes 16

Noes 20

Majority 4