South Australian Hospitals

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:03): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: There is no doubt that over the past few years our hospitals and health system have been under enormous pressure. A combination of COVID impacts, staffing pressures, budget pressures, but ultimately a lack of capacity, have led to the pressure.

Upon forming government two months ago, we set to work immediately on addressing capacity in the health system. Our plan included increasing vaccinations and opening every possible bed we could across hospitals to support our healthcare workers and their patients. However, our health system is still under massive pressure. Our hospitals and healthcare workers are managing their busy normal workload, as well as treating patients with COVID, and on top of that we are seeing flu cases and other respiratory issues. In 2021, there was a total of 40 cases of the flu in SA, with two hospitalisations. So far this year, we have recorded 725 cases of the flu, with 89 people hospitalised. This is on top of the hundreds of thousands of COVID cases and 246 cases currently hospitalised.

I want to thank everyone working in our hospitals for continuing to deliver quality care to patients while under enormous pressure: the ambos who are working long shifts and apologising when they cannot get there on time, the nurses who are missing breaks and wearing PPE for huge stretches and the doctors who are stretched across so many patients, all with urgent needs. To them I say: your government is taking every possible step we can to open more beds, to employ more staff and to protect the community.

Every possible bed we can find a space and staff to open we are opening. An extra 173 beds have been opened across the hospital system since we came to government. This includes more beds open at Modbury Hospital, at Hampstead, at QEH, at Lyell McEwin, at Gawler and more. We have launched new recruitment campaigns for staff in our health system. We are promoting vaccination through new campaigns and making it easier for people to access both COVID and flu vaccinations. We have accepted in full or in principle all the recommendations of the Monaghan review of the previous government's SHEP project at Flinders Medical Centre that the review found made the situation worse.

Unfortunately, the pressure on the health system has forced SA Health to cancel some non-critical elective surgery this week. I am advised that fewer than 20 less urgent operations were cancelled due to this but will be rescheduled. Essential surgery is of course continuing. This is a difficult situation for patients waiting for elective surgery and it reflects the pressure the system is currently under. Cancelling elective surgery is a last resort, and this of course is significantly less than the two months of elective surgery cancellations we saw across the public and private hospital systems in January and February this year.

We have taken action to open as many staffed beds as we can, and only a lack of physical beds and staffing is stopping us from opening more. This is to address the significant access block that is leaving patients stuck in emergency departments waiting for a bed. That is why we need to build more hospital wards and hire more doctors, nurses and paramedics. We are opening everything we possibly can with the resources we have inherited. This government will significantly build up the resources across our health system with more doctors, nurses and ambos and more than 300 extra hospital beds to provide more capacity.

With a partner in a future Albanese government in Canberra, we would have the opportunity to add 160 beds at the Flinders Medical Centre and the Repat. This extra capacity will provide much-needed resources in our system and build for the future and, importantly, help fix the former government's ramping crisis. Make no mistake: our hospitals are under enormous strain. This winter poses significant challenges for our health system, particularly for our hospitals. I urge all South Australians to please get vaccinated for both COVID and the flu. It is best way to protect you and to protect our health system.