Ambulance Ramping

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:28): My question is to the Premier. Does the Premier agree with comments made by Dr Lawrence? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: SA Health CEO, Dr Robyn Lawrence, told the Budget and Finance Committee last week that Labor's ramping election commitment was 'to return to our 2018 levels of transfer of care in three years'.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:29): I again reiterate that the government, through the Premier and myself, were very clear before the election in terms of stating what our objective was, which was to—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Morialta!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —fix the ramping crisis.

Mr Telfer interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Flinders is warned.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: When we were asked what it meant definitively, we outlined it as being to reduce ramping to the extent that we can get ambulance response times back to what they were back in 2018. There is quote after quote after quote that we have provided that outlines where the now Premier said that time and time again. To do that, we have to substantially reduce ramping times from where they are now. Dr Lawrence and the whole team, all the clinicians right the way through, are determined to do that. But we can't do that without building additional capacity because we have inherited a system that doesn't have the capacity there. We didn't see hundreds of hospital beds built over the past four years under the previous government—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Colton! Member for Morphett! The minister has the call.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: In fact, we saw, say, at Flinders Medical Centre, inpatient beds being closed under the previous government, which has now been denounced in an independent report as making the situation worse. Now, at Flinders Medical Centre, we are in the process of building 136 extra beds at that hospital because that's what is needed to get patients out of the emergency department.

Of course, there are still challenges, as the Premier has outlined, in relation to ageing of the population and in relation to primary care challenges that we face, but we are determined as a government to put those investments in place to make sure that people can get the response that they need all the way through the health system, which leads to people ultimately getting those 000 calls on time.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Flinders!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: We can only do that if we substantially reduce ramping from where it is.