COVID-19 Testing Clinics

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (15:06): My question is to the Premier. Premier, why did the government close The Queen Elizabeth Hospital testing clinic and the Women's and Children's Hospital testing clinic in March this year and will those two testing clinics now be reopened?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (15:07): I thank the member for Kaurna for his question. They were closed because at the time they didn't have sufficient presentation to warrant those resources from SA Pathology and there were other testing facilities close by that didn't have delays. It's quite possible that additional sites will be opened up. I think what we have been able to demonstrate right since day one is that SA Pathology is extraordinarily responsive to consumer behaviour to try to maximise the number of people who are getting tested.

SA Pathology has led the world. In fact, I think the drive-through clinic, which originally opened up at Hampstead, was the second in the world—certainly the first in Australia—and then of course there was the Repat site. I may have them around the wrong way. I'm not 100 per cent sure, but the Repat site and Hampstead were both very, very early on, and then we saw this type of drive-through facility replicated in other parts of the world.

I remember that Dr Tom Dodd was very proud when he told me one day in the middle of last year that he had received a call from Stanford University, one of the leading universities in the world, to query how he was administering PCR with that drive-through. South Australia were pioneers. We have had excellent service, and that of course resulted in South Australia having amongst the highest PCR testing rates in the world.

It's that information that has provided great confidence to our public health administration and our State Coordinator to make sure that we can continue to minimise, if you like, any restrictions around density in South Australia because we have very good surveillance testing, testing people with symptoms as well as asymptomatic testing. Of course, we are also joined by our friends in private pathology services in South Australia. We have excellent private pathology services in this state that complement the work of SA Pathology.

One of the great things about the way we have tackled the coronavirus in this state is that everybody has been joined up and everybody is working for team South Australia to make sure that we can keep our state safe and our economy strong.