Grievance Debate

Ambulance Ramping

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (15:09): A bit over two years ago, the now Premier grabbed at his phone, took to Twitter and tweeted that ambulance ramping was the worst it had been for 30 years in this state. Of course, any ambulance ramping is unacceptable, but at that time there were about 450 to 500 hours that month when ambulances had been stuck outside hospitals. What is the figure now? It has not gone down: it has gone way up. It is now five times the rate it was when Steven Marshall said that ramping was the worst it had been in 30 years. This is a Premier who got elected on the basis of a promise of better services.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Point of order: a breach of standing orders by referring to a member of the parliament by name. It is designed to prevent quarrels.

The SPEAKER: Yes, I believe you mentioned a name. It should be 'the Premier' or 'the member for Dunstan'. Is that what the Minister for Education was saying?

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I believe he said 'Premier' and then his name.

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: Not with the microphone on.

The SPEAKER: I have the point of order. You have made your point of order. I will listen to the member for Kaurna carefully.

Mr PICTON: The government do not want to hear this, but ramping has doubled since they have been elected. They came to office promising that they were going to fix the health system. They came to office promising better services for the people of South Australia, and what has happened is that the situation has become so much worse since then. It was only last time we were here that we were hearing about some of the difficulties that our ambulance services were facing, and the situation has got even worse since then, two weeks ago.

What we saw this week was that we had significant issues with an ambulance call-out for a patient in the member for Mawson's electorate in McLaren Vale who had difficulty breathing, who could not breathe properly. They had to wait over 20 minutes not only for the ambulance to get to them but just for one to be available to send out to that patient, so that person had to wait over 30 minutes for an ambulance to be sent to them.

We also had another issue that came out this week of a patient who was 90 years old who called 000 due to an emergency. It took an hour for the ambulance to come to them, and then that was only the beginning of the journey because the ambulance then took them to Flinders Medical Centre, which had massive ramping. The member for Hurtle Vale, who used to work there, viewed vision of the ramping and said that in her time working there it had never been as bad as that.

Flinders turned her away. They said, 'We can't deal with you here,' so off she went back in the ambulance over to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, but they were ramping there, too, so they put her back in the ambulance and sent her to The QEH. For this patient to receive treatment, they were shuttled around our city for seven hours. This is a 90-year-old person stuck on a stretcher for seven hours. They deserve better. Our elderly citizens of this state deserve better. They expect a public health system that is going to care for them.

What is the government's response to this? It is not to invest in any extra resources; in fact, they are pulling resources out. They closed 60 beds across our health system a couple of weeks ago. They said, 'Demand is going down. We don't need these beds. They are going to be mothballed now. But if demand goes up, we will open them back up.'

Ms Cook: They are flexible.

Mr PICTON: They will flex them back up. Well, they did not flex them back up when that woman was stuck in the back of an ambulance for seven hours. They did not flex them back up when ambulances were stuck on the ramp and not responding to calls in McLaren Vale this week and they did not flex them back up when we heard from Dr Chua in the north-eastern suburbs that somebody was stuck in Athelstone who had had a heart attack and collapsed. Somebody passing by pulled over their ute and called 000, and that person had to wait 24 minutes for a very urgent ambulance to turn up there. This is not acceptable.

The situation is getting so much worse, and the idea that beds are being reopened is a complete lie. The Premier said here, 'Clinicians will be able to reopen them.' That is clearly a lie. Today, we heard allegations that for 10 hours people in the western suburbs were without proper cardiology care at that hospital, which is not only dangerous for those people but is a massive breach of their election promise to reinstate 24-hour coverage for that hospital. When we asked the Premier about it today, he said, 'It's just an operational issue. Nothing to do with me,' even though his signature is on the election promise that said there would be 24/7 coverage for people in the western suburbs. He denies that. The situation is getting so much worse and lives are at risk every day this continues.