SA Ambulance Service

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:26): My question is to the Premier. Does the Premier accept that the government's offer yesterday will have no noticeable impact on ambulance response times? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: The secretary of the Ambulance Employees Association, Phil Palmer, has advised that 'probably twice as many are needed to make any noticeable change to response times'.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:27): I'm not familiar with those comments presented by the Leader of the Opposition, but what I am aware of is the great work that our men and women of the SA Ambulance Service do on the frontline. They have served this state well, especially during the very trying conditions that we have had in our state, much like the rest of the country and the rest of the world during the global coronavirus pandemic.

One of the things that we are doing is working with the sector to develop alternative care pathways. One of the things that we have done to address the very elevated levels of mental health presentations within our emergency departments is to establish the Urgent Mental Health Care Centre here in South Australia. This is an alternative for people going to emergency departments in South Australia. It is the first of its kind in the country. It's a national demonstration of new models of care which are going to better serve those people to make sure that they get the appropriate care as quickly as possible.

This is another example of what we're doing to try to alleviate the situation. I have been the first to stand up and say that the current situation being experienced in South Australia is completely and utterly unacceptable, but this is why we have put action in place to address various aspects of the situation that we are experiencing at the moment.

One of the things we are doing is spending in excess of $1.1 billion of new money on upgrades to hospitals across the state. Much of this is focused on addressing some of the capacity constraints that we inherited in our emergency departments in South Australia. In fact, I think that we are now talking about a very significant increase in the number of beds in our hospitals to go with the increase in doctors and nurses here in South Australia. They are very important and continuing investments that we make.

Recently, I visited the Flinders Medical Centre. That is the busiest emergency department in the entire state. Soon it will be the largest emergency department in the state. When the busiest emergency department in the state—which was acknowledged in the former health minister the Hon. John Hill's very instructive document that I spoke on yesterday; they knew it was too small—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Lee!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: When that emergency department service is full, what happens is that ambulances are diverted into the Central Adelaide Local Health Network. Of course, fixing the capacity constraint that we inherited from those opposite at the Flinders Medical Centre will actually have a positive effect, not just for the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network but, importantly, the busiest, for the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

We are also very significantly improving the facilities at Modbury Hospital and that's absolutely crucial. I was out there recently with various members of this chamber to inspect the very significant and long overdue upgrade to Modbury Hospital. Those upgrades will take pressure off the Lyell McEwin Hospital. Even the Lyell McEwin Hospital is having a very significant increase to its capacity, in terms of not just emergency department beds but also short stay mental health beds—a further increase to 10 short stay mental health beds. I visited The Queen Elizabeth Hospital two or three weeks ago and—

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Lee!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —site works are already underway down there now. What we saw under the previous government was the downgrading of services, the cutting out of many of the—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —very important cardiac services down here in South Australia. I was born at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, so I felt very pleased that we were—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Lee will cease interjecting.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —improving it. That's going to have a brand-new emergency department in the western suburbs. So lots of investment is being made to improve and expand our health facilities here in South Australia.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The time for answering the question has expired. Before I call the leader, I warn the member for Kavel, I call to order the Minister for Trade and Investment, I warn for a second time the member for Lee. The member for West Torrens will leave for the remainder of question time in accordance with standing order 137A.

The honourable member for West Torrens having withdrawn from the chamber:

The SPEAKER: I remind all members that persistent interjection is contrary to standing orders and has consequences.