Grievance Debate

Ambulance Ramping

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (15:09): We have a very serious situation affecting our ambulance service, and this government is not at all interested in fixing it. They are only interested in cuts that are going to make this situation worse. Last night, we had very serious reports from our paramedics that in the southern suburbs and the Fleurieu, between the city and Victor Harbor, there were no ambulances available at 8.30pm. We had no denials of that fact from the government today at all. In fact, we asked the government how many were available, and what did the minister say? He said, 'Enough.' He could not tell us how many there were. Enough is apparently zero for people who live in the south and people who live in the Fleurieu.

This is a very serious concern for people who need urgent care. This is not the first instance we have had of the situation affecting our ambulance service. We know that things have been getting progressively worse over the 18 months that this government has been in office. The ramping statistics at our hospitals have been going up and up and up to the point that last month we had the highest ramping this state has ever seen: for over 2,300 hours, ambulances were ramped outside our emergency departments with people stuck in those ambulances, unable to get the treatment they needed in emergency departments.

That not only affects those patients but it also affects those people in the community who need those ambulances, who need those response times urgently, and clearly that was the situation last night. We had a case where ambulances were being sent from the southern suburbs up to cases in the north at Broadview and Mansfield Park. Ambulances were being sent from Ashford and Bedford Park to those cases. That is clearly a very long distance away, and it meant that the south did not have the ambulances they needed.

The government say that ramping was not a factor. Well, looking at the stats that are out, there were 60 ambulances in the three hours between 6.30pm and 9.30pm that were stuck for more than 30 minutes dropping off patients at emergency departments across our city. It is clearly not acceptable, and this government clearly do not have a plan to address it. The only plan they have is for cuts to make it worse.

Last Friday, they announced that they are cutting 60 beds. That is on top of the 40 beds that they closed last year. Last year, they closed beds at Flinders Medical Centre and Hampstead. Now they are closing beds at the RAH, The QEH, at Hampstead again and at St Margaret's. They say, 'Don't worry, these will be flex capacity. These will be surge capacity.' When are they actually going to be turned on? They said the same thing about the 40 beds they closed last year; and despite the record ramping that we had this year, not one of those beds was ever reopened, not at any time. There is only flex down, not flex up under this government.

Not only that, this government is embarking upon cuts to doctors and nurses. Last year, we had here in the parliament the Premier standing on his feet telling the house that doctors and nurses would not be cut under his government. What we have seen is the exact opposite: they are now at five hospitals embarking upon cuts to doctors' and nurses' positions. They will not be replaced. That is going to put more pressure on the existing staff, and that is going to mean more delays for patients, more ambulance ramping and more delays in the community for people getting the care they need. Ultimately, this government only have one agenda for health, and that is cuts.

We have seen that in their appointment of KordaMentha, interstate corporate liquidators, who are all based in Melbourne and Sydney. They fly over here every Monday, they fly back Thursday night, they stay at fancy hotels and they get taxis around at government expense. They are getting paid $6,000 a day to run and cut services in our hospitals, but people have faced the indignity of being stuck on ambulance ramps.

We had a patient die on an ambulance ramp last month amidst that record ramping at Flinders. We had the indignity experienced by a patient just this week who went to Flinders Medical Centre to get the care that he needed but who was sent home early because they were under such pressure. He could not even walk around his house, he was in excruciating pain and he said that he would expect something like that would occur in a Third World country. This situation is going from worse to worse.

We had the dramatic intervention of the ICAC commissioner this week, who said that he is very concerned and wants to launch an inquiry into SA Health. In fact, today he has released letters from himself to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing saying that he asked for this inquiry, saying that he asked for $2 million to conduct it and what did he get? A response from the Treasurer saying, 'No, not allowed to do this.' What did the government do? They hired KordaMentha a month later and paid them 10 times as much as the ICAC commissioner wanted. This government's agenda is only cuts. Patients are bearing the brunt and the situation is going from bad to worse.