Hydrotherapy Services

Mr DULUK (Waite) (14:10): Thank you very much, sir. My question is to the Premier. Will the Premier please update the house on his recent visit to the Repat site and on the government's plans for hydrotherapy services in southern Adelaide?

The SPEAKER: The Premier will be heard in silence. Premier.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:10): Thank you very much. I thank the member for Waite for his question. The Repat is a very important precinct in his area, and I thank him for his interest in the Repat. Like the member for Waite, I am very interested in the Repat, as are most South Australians. They saw it as a very valuable precinct. It was one that the former government said it would never, ever sell—never, ever.

That was before there was a change in premier, apparently, and they moved away from that original position. They didn't make that clear before the election, when I note that the previous member for Waite was doing poster shots out the front saying, 'The Repat is very important to us.' Well, the Repat is really important to us, and we are actually doing the work that is necessary to turn this back into a genuine health precinct after those opposite did everything they could to destroy the value of that piece of land in the electorate of Elder.

Can I say that, on Sunday morning, I had the great opportunity to meet with some of the key personnel who work in the southern system, in particular Sue O'Neill, who is the newly appointed Chief Executive of the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network; Mr David Morris, the Chief Operating Officer; and Dr Di Lawrence, who is the Acting Executive Director of Medical Services. I thank those members of the Public Service who took the time out—on Mother's Day, I point out—to actually provide a comprehensive briefing for me and Stephen Wade, the Minister for Health and Wellbeing in South Australia.

This is a fantastic site. It beggars belief that those opposite actually wanted to close it down. The southern suburbs is an area where there is a growing population and an ageing population. We believe that there needs to be improved services available to meet community expectations, and that is why we will be doing everything we possibly can to reinstitute health services on that site. One of the things we have already done and we have taken action on is to provide access to the public for the services of the pool that was on that site, the hydrotherapy pool. Services or access to that pool will start from the end of this month, and it will be scaled up in the months following that.

I must say that I really enjoyed meeting with Gemma Taylor and Leslie Diwitt Jones from the YWCA. They have been running a program called the Encore program, which provides people who have suffered from breast cancer to actually take part in hydrotherapy activities. They had previously been undertaking those activities at the pool that was at the Flinders Medical Centre, and as those opposite, and in fact every person in this parliament should be aware, there were two pools: one at the Repat and one at Flinders Medical Centre. They were both closed and a new pool was built at the Flinders Medical Centre. The problem was that it did not actually meet the capacity of the two pools that were operating before.

So Encore was without a pool to provide a safe and secure environment for women who have suffered from breast cancer and who may not want to undertake hydrotherapy at a public pool, and you can imagine the reasons why. My sister is a survivor from breast cancer, and often women, having been through treatment are without hair and maybe also have physical differences from where they were previously, do not want to be in a public environment. That is why it was so important for us to make sure that they do have adequate facilities. We are going to make sure that the Repat hydrotherapy pool is open and available to the Encore group, and other community groups and rehab patients, as soon as possible.