Emergency Departments

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:24): My question is to the Premier. Are things looking good for the 102 patients who are currently stuck waiting for an emergency bed across our emergency departments in the public health system?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:24): I am happy to answer this question. Of course, there is a huge amount of work to be done in our health system across South Australia. As I referred to in my previous answer, we were left with a very unattractive situation, with our health system—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —left in a perilous situation with the downgrading of the Modbury Hospital, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the Noarlunga Hospital and the closure of the Repat. Those opposite, the brains trust opposite, said that what they needed to do was to concentrate all the services on the three major spine hospitals: the Lyell McEwin, the Royal Adelaide Hospital and the Flinders Medical Centre. Well, this was a disaster. We have never even heard them refer to that document again because they know it was failed policy.

It can't be undone overnight. Those downgrades were very, very significant. But I can tell you what we have been doing: massive upgrades to virtually every single hospital, metropolitan and country.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader will cease interjecting.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: They say, 'No worries,' like they have something to do with it. Let me tell you, the Leader of the Opposition should hang his head in shame. He closed the Repat hospital. He broke the heart of the veterans community in South Australia.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Playford is warned.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: He failed to listen to anybody and then he sits over there and says, 'Thank you very much.' Why should we be thanking the Leader of the Opposition for closing the Repat hospital? Why should we be thanking him?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Premier will resume his seat. The leader will cease interjecting. The member for West Torrens rises on a point of order.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The Premier is engaging in debate in his answer, and that's disorderly, and I would ask you to bring the Premier back into line to answer the substance of the question.

The SPEAKER: I have listened very carefully to the question. The Premier has taken the question, notwithstanding that it might appropriately have required leave in terms of the facts that it introduced. It addressed itself to the number of patients that might be awaiting public beds and was otherwise broad in its scope. I am listening carefully to the Premier's answer. The Premier is addressing the question. The Premier has the call, so I don't uphold the point of order.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: What I can outline to the house is that since coming to government we have very, very significantly reinvested in health in South Australia; in fact, more than $2.2 billion worth of new money going into the budget. This was necessary and urgently required. In addition to that, of course, there has been a very significant investment in our COVID response, but also, as I said, in that general area.

The Auditor-General has independently made it very clear that we now have more doctors, more nurses, more paramedics than when we came to government. They are of course extraordinarily important to making sure that we provide the very best service that we possibly can. We are currently experiencing a surge. We are experiencing a surge here in South Australia and we are experiencing a surge nationally, but we are not sitting on our hands.

We are incredibly involved in a range of programs to increase the capacity, whether it be increasing the physical capacity within our hospitals, whether it be making sure that we can get the patient flow through our hospitals to an optimal level or whether it be alternative care pathways—for example, the Urgent Mental Health Care Centre; the very first of its type in Australia is right here in South Australia.

I have been reliably informed—I spoke to the members of that team very recently—that they have had an excellent response from the urgent mental health care service here in South Australia. But there are many other things that we are doing, including very significantly increasing the number of paramedics that we have in South Australia.

The problems that we inherited from those opposite have not all been solved yet. There is still more work to be done—much more work to be done—but we have a plan. We are implementing that plan and we will see a very significant increase in the overall emergency department capacity here in South Australia. In fact, there are nine emergency departments which currently have advanced plans to upgrade their capacity. These are nearly all the hospitals in metropolitan Adelaide, plus the peri-urban hospitals, plus we are dealing with the urgent maintenance backlog that we inherited from those opposite in our country hospitals across South Australia. There is work to be done and we are getting on with that important job.