Grievance Debate

Women's and Children's Hospital

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (15:09): Today, we have seen a shocking development in the state of our health services in South Australia with the release of an unprecedented letter from 215 doctors at the Women's and Children's Hospital, a letter which they wrote to the government in October last year but which they have now released publicly. They had to take this step because no action has been taken. They raise very grave concerns about the future of services at that hospital, about the state of that hospital and about the safety and quality of care, particularly for children, at that hospital.

This is a beloved institution. This is a key service in our state that almost every family has been in touch with at some stage or another. I think South Australians will be very concerned to hear that the vast majority of doctors at that hospital have lost confidence in the government's handling and ability to manage the hospital and to provide the resources those doctors need to provide the quality of care that South Australians should be able to expect.

The revelations in this letter are startling in terms of services on the brink of collapse in this state, potentially neonatal services and paediatric services on the brink of collapse, including paediatric cancer services; the fact that doctors have significant worries about the safety and quality of care; and the fact that they believe that the government's focus and the health services' focus is entirely upon savings and not upon providing the care that is required. They believe that the medical advice that they have been providing to the government and to the health administrators has been consistently ignored. All this is a damning indictment on the government two years into office. They are running the health system so badly that doctors have had to take this step.

Tonight, there is a meeting of those doctors on how they want to resolve this issue going forward, and what additional steps they are going to take to resolve it, because clearly raising it with the government has not been enough. What has happened is pretty much nothing. They have employed one extra trainee. The minister met with some of the doctors, but three months after the letter was received. Apparently he did nothing for three months and has done nothing since.

The Premier, who you think would be interested in the future of women's and children's health services in this state, has done nothing. He is more interested in photo opportunities than he is about the concerns from 215 public hospital doctors in this state. It is absolutely an indictment on his leadership that he cannot even confirm to this parliament whether he knew about this letter before it was published in The Advertiser today, some three or four months after it was received by the government. That is completely unacceptable.

This government has an agenda of one thing in health and that is cuts, an agenda on cuts when the Premier promised that there would be no reduction in doctor and nurse numbers across our health system. He would not reconfirm that today because what is happening is they are cutting doctors and nurses. They have handed out voluntary separation payments across different health services across the state to reduce doctors and nurses in our hospitals because that is their focus. As these doctors say, the focus is entirely upon cuts and not on providing the appropriate health care.

We know that at the Women's and Children's Hospital they have been spending money on consultants, bringing in KPMG consultants and Studer consultants from interstate to cut funding at the hospital at the expense of patient care. These doctors are ringing alarm bells about that. We know that in the state budget they are cutting funding this financial year for the hospital. The net service cost of the hospital is going down by $6 million this year. The number of FTEs at the hospital is going down by 14, according to the budget papers this year. Clearly, this government is focused on cuts.

Just to add insult to injury, this letter comes out at the same time that the government is about to embark upon another round of terminations and voluntary separation payments at the Women's and Children's Hospital. On the one hand, you have the doctors saying that this is a serious issue and services are at risk of collapse due to under-resourcing, but the government's response to that is to start another round of asking staff to go, and they will not be replaced. It is a focus on cuts of doctors, nurses and funding.

We see under the leadership of this government that ramping has doubled. They have no idea when a new hospital will ever be built; that project is completely off track. This government have just dismissed the concerns of these doctors today and they should stand condemned for it.