Modbury Hospital

Dr HARVEY (Newland) (14:37): My question is to the Minister for Education, representing the Minister for Health. Can the minister update the house on providing better health services closer to home for residents of Adelaide's north-east?

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (14:37): I thank the member for Newland for this question. I know that he is a passionate advocate for residents in his electorate.

As I was saying yesterday about the member for King, who I hear regularly from on education matters and also the health minister on health matters, the same is definitely true of the member for Newland. His advocacy for Modbury Hospital throughout his entire time in politics is heartfelt, it is sincere and it is on behalf of his constituents and, indeed of course, as residents of the north-eastern suburbs, which the member for King, the member for Newland, myself and the member for Hartley are all very passionate about our areas.

Modbury Hospital is a key health facility, providing important infrastructure for residents in our areas. It was just a couple of months ago when my own family had very good cause to be very grateful to the terrific staff, the doctors and the nurses at Modbury Hospital who were able to provide outstanding, quick, responsive and high-quality care for our family, as they have done so many times in the past and as they have done over the years for many residents in our areas of Newland, of Morialta, of King, of Hartley and, of course, of the broader north-east.

But things were not perfect when we came to government just three and a little years ago. We were elected with a passionate commitment to supporting residents of the north-east to receive better services closer to home, to turn around Labor's Transforming Health experiment, which saw such significant downgrades to our hospital and health services throughout South Australia over an extended period of time, a period of time presided over by Labor frontbenchers serving as health ministers, serving as assistant health ministers and now purporting to be on Labor's front bench.

Adelaide's north was particularly badly hit by Transforming Health. We saw the Lyell McEwin neglected and services downgraded at Modbury Hospital. A key part of our response was to introduce our commitment to establish a four-bed high dependency unit at Modbury Hospital, which I am very pleased to advise was opened last week.

The HDU will have a number of flow-on effects for Modbury Hospital. It will ease the pressure on the busy emergency department and allow locals with more complex conditions to be admitted to the hospital. It will also support the delivery of multiday surgery, up to 72 hours, as well as the increase of low to medium complexity surgery in the new surgical suite, which is currently undergoing an upgrade.

The HDU will enable patients requiring a higher level of monitoring and management of their clinical condition to be cared for at Modbury and increase the ability to manage patients both medically and post surgery. This means that residents of Adelaide's north-east can get more of the care they need closer to their homes, rather than having to travel to a hospital further away from the support of their families and their loved ones.

The contrast is stark. The opposition, when they were in government, downgraded Modbury. We have upgraded. They closed its HDU. We have opened an HDU. They left the residents of the north-east with impoverished health services. We are restoring health services to Adelaide's north-east. Indeed, a $96 million upgrade to Modbury Hospital is currently underway and, I tell you what, it's a long time since there has been such optimism in the north-east for that outstanding facility and its future.

We have opened the HDU, ensuring clinically safe support for hospital services to local patients, delivering on our commitment to support access to better health services in the north-east, closer to their homes.