Royal Adelaide Hospital

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:16): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Does the minister guarantee that there will be no adverse patient outcomes as a result of the temporary emergency department waiting room at the Royal Adelaide Hospital? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: Patient Kath Lovell was quoted in The Advertiser on 18 August as saying:

This transportable is Third World—there was a man lying on the floor. People vomiting, people looking terribly unwell, all crammed into a tiny space…

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:16): Certainly, the advice that I have from the Central Adelaide Local Health Network is that people are getting the appropriate care and that they are doing everything possible to support people during that period. I noticed, when this issue was raised in the media, there were a number of patients who were commenting positively in terms of the treatment that they had just received at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

We are by no means saying that the interim solution, while construction is underway, is where we want to be. Obviously, we want that construction to be done as soon as possible and to make sure that that area can provide the ongoing care in the best possible way, as the clinicians have asked for, and we are backing those clinicians who have instigated and designed this upgrade to hospital, to make sure that they have the best possible facilities to care for their patients.