Question Time

SA Health Focus Week

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (14:08): My question is to the Premier. Has Focus Week failed already? Sir, with your leave and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: Yesterday was day 1 of Focus Week, yet last night all metropolitan hospitals were Code White, meaning the entire health system is over capacity.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:08): I am very happy to answer this question because this is a government that is investing in our health system to make sure that we have more doctors, more nurses, more paramedics on the frontline. Just this morning, we gave an update in relation to our work on the health system and what we have done just in the first year of office. We have hired an additional, above-attrition—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —550 clinicians in SA Health. So 278 extra nurses, FTE, working in SA Health now, 89 additional doctors working in SA Health now, compared to what we inherited when we came to office.

We have also ended the program of redundancies of frontline workers, where we saw over 300 nursing positions made redundant. We have now ended that and we are hiring additional staff. In the meantime, while we are hiring even more staff, of course we are trying to find any way we can improve flow through the system. That's what the health system is doing this week and every week.

We have been very clear about the ambitions of Focus Week, which is to try to find different ways, hospital by hospital and ward by ward, that we can improve systems, improve flow through the system. We have also been very clear that the answer to our fundamental issues of a lack of capacity is to build more capacity. That's why as a government we have committed 550 extra beds in the healthcare system, which we are in the process of building, of delivering—because that's what is ultimately needed to make sure we have the capacity to get patients through the healthcare system.

I want to thank all our doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and paramedics for the work they are doing this week, but also each and every week, to care for South Australians. They know they have a government that is not making health workers redundant but is now investing in additional staff, additional beds, to make sure people can get the care they need.