Ambulance Ramping

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (16:53): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister inform the house of the Malinauskas Labor government's plan to address ambulance ramping at our hospitals?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (16:53): I thank the member for Torrens and congratulate her on her re-election and thank her for her passionate advocacy on behalf of health in the north-eastern suburbs, in particular at Modbury Hospital.

Everyone on our side of the house has spent a significant amount of time over the past year meeting with our frontline healthcare workers, whether it's ambulance officers, doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, admin people, cleaners, you name it: people who work in our health system who are overstretched, who have clearly reached the end of their tether in terms of the pressure on the system. We have also spent a lot of time speaking to patients, speaking to patients about the waits that they have in emergency departments, the waits that they have on the ambulance ramp and, very worryingly, the waits that they have calling 000 when they need an ambulance.

You can't come away from those conversations, from those sometimes heart-wrenching stories, without deciding that you need to do something about it, and that's exactly what we did. That's why we committed to a very significant health policy at the past election, which I am very delighted the people of South Australia have endorsed, and now we are getting on with the job of delivering it. That is a very significant investment—

Mr Tarzia interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Hartley!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: That's a very—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —significant investment.

Mr Tarzia interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The acting leader is called to order.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: It is a very significant investment in making sure that we open 300 extra beds—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —in our hospital system, that we hire 350—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —extra paramedics, that we—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hartley is warned.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —hire—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Wright!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —300 extra nurses in our health system—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Wright!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —that we hire and recruit 100 extra doctors in a health system. They don't want to hear this—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hurtle Vale!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —because they were not doing this plan. We saw ambulance ramping under their watch—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Hartley!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —increase by 485 per cent. Under the leadership of the member for Dunstan, ambulance ramping increased from 2017 to 2021 by 485 per cent. We had to scratch and scrape to get those figures, but it painted a bleak picture of how bad the situation was for patients across South Australia.

So, very importantly, we are now getting on with the job. Importantly, not only did we know the pressure the health system was under before the election but upon forming government we were clearly briefed by the health department, by the Chief Public Health Officer, of what the modelling was showing in terms of the increasing number of COVID hospitalisations over coming weeks, so we immediately took action to increase the number of beds over the past few weeks as well.

We have now made available to the system over 150 extra beds: extra beds at Modbury Hospital, extra beds in the Royal Adelaide Hospital, extra beds in The QEH, extra beds at Lyell McEwin, extra beds at the Women's and Children's Hospital. Very clearly, we are now making those very rapid investments to make sure that the health system has the capacity it needs.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Hartley!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Importantly, a very critical element, though, is that we need to increase the mental health capacity of our health system. Day after day, what we have seen under the previous government is people with mental health conditions stuck not for hours but for days in our emergency departments, waiting for a bed elsewhere in the health system. That is absolutely unacceptable.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: We have a plan to invest 120 additional beds—

The Hon. B.I. Boyer interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Wright!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —across the mental health system.

The Hon. B.I. Boyer interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Wright!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: This is a generational investment in mental health, to make sure that those patients can get the care that they need because being stuck in an emergency department for those patients is the worst place they can be. It leads to ramping, it leads to the delays in people getting a 000 case and, ultimately, that puts lives at risk across South Australia.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!