Question Time

Lyell McEwin Hospital

Mrs PEARCE (King) (14:17): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister update the house on the progress of health infrastructure in the northern suburbs?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:17): Thank you very much to the member for King. Yes, I can update the house in relation to the development of health infrastructure in the northern suburbs, because this is critically important for making sure that people in a growing area of our state, in particular in the northern suburbs, can get the health care they need. One thing that we know we need absolutely in terms of our healthcare system is more hospital beds, and that is exactly what we are delivering at the moment at the Lyell McEwin Hospital.

It is fantastic to see the sights of the new crane that has been established at the Lyell McEwin Hospital and the works that are currently underway in our $47 million plan to build 48 extra beds at the Lyell McEwin Hospital. I thank the member for King for her advocacy for those extra beds at the hospital. They will provide much-needed capacity.

It really was excellent foresight in the original Stage C redevelopment that happened about a decade ago to make sure that there was the capacity to expand on top of that building, underneath the helipad for more beds that would be needed in the future. We are now utilising that opportunity to build those additional beds, which are absolutely needed in the northern suburbs.

Of course, this comes after our project—which was announced back in the Weatherill government in 2017—to significantly rebuild and expand the emergency department at the Lyell McEwin Hospital. The Premier and I were delighted to open that last year. We have also announced an additional stage of that works. It was originally going to go from 56 treatment spaces to 72; we are now taking it up to 76 treatment spaces in the emergency department, acknowledging the great need for additional health care. In addition, at the Lyell McEwin Hospital we have put in place nine additional dialysis chairs at a cost of $1.2 million because there is a significant need for dialysis in the northern suburbs.

But we know that there will keep being more demands for those healthcare services in the north in the future. That is why I am delighted to announce today that the government is compulsorily acquiring land adjacent to the hospital to make sure that we have the pathway to expand the Lyell McEwin Hospital into the future, because this is a government which thinks about the long term. We know that in the northern suburbs there is going to be greater and greater need for that hospital to expand over coming years. If that land had gone somewhere else, if some other commercial development had been bought there, then that would severely limit our ability to expand the Lyell McEwin Hospital into the future.

Obviously, we have been working with the City of Playford in relation to that, but we are using our compulsory acquisition powers that we have to acquire that. That is some 1.8 hectares of land that is coming into government hands through that compulsory acquisition. Of course, this is not the only project that is happening in the northern suburbs as well, particularly in the north-eastern suburbs.

We are investing very heavily at Modbury Hospital. We are building 44 new mental health beds, replacing the current 20 mental health beds that are available at Modbury Hospital in an outdated facility. Those plans are going very well. We are undertaking a very detailed consultation with our clinicians at the moment to make sure that we get them right, because we do know that mental health care is a significant limiting factor in terms of access block that we see in hospitals, so we critically need more mental health services available, particularly in NALHN as well.

But I think really excitingly also as part of that development at Modbury Hospital is going to be a new cancer centre for the first time at Modbury Hospital so people will be able to get their care closer to home in the north-eastern suburbs. That is something that has been called for by a lot of people in the north-eastern suburbs, and we are delighted that this government will be delivering it.