Ambulance Ramping

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (14:13): My question is to the Premier. Is the Premier aware of the hours that have been lost on the ramp at the Lyell McEwin Hospital and is this acceptable? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: Ramping at the Lyell McEwin Hospital reached the highest level on record last month with 868 hours lost on the ramp, and yesterday there was a second safety inspection in just two weeks.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:13): We absolutely acknowledge that the Lyell McEwin is under significant pressure, and we have seen the pressure in terms of attendances, in terms of the acuity of those presentations at the Lyell McEwin Hospital going up and up. That is why we have made those investments. We are delivering on those election commitments, in fact exceeding the election commitment to invest in 24 additional beds at the Lyell McEwin Hospital.

We are now doubling that; we are building 48 extra beds at the Lyell McEwin Hospital. We have also increased what the original proposal was for the emergency department upgrade, which was going to be 72; we increased that to 76. We have signed a new partnership agreement with ACH Group to utilise, I believe, two dozen beds in their new development opposite Lyell McEwin Hospital. We have also secured land that we have compulsorily acquired on the site for future upgrades at that hospital site as well. So every possible lever we are using to increase the capacity at Lyell McEwin Hospital.

If people drive past the hospital at the moment, they can see the cranes, they can see the construction activity underway at that hospital, to make sure that we have the additional beds that we need to meet that demand. That pressure has had an effect. It has meant that at the same time we have seen reductions elsewhere in the system. Last month, we saw the best month for the Royal Adelaide Hospital in the past 18 months and at the Flinders Medical Centre we saw the third-best month in the past 18 months, but we did see continued pressure on the Lyell McEwin Hospital, and we need those additional beds and resources to be able to cope with that.

In addition, we are also working with the federal government that has just opened a new urgent care centre, which is available at Elizabeth. We are certainly encouraging people who have non-emergency but still urgent issues that aren't life critical, who do need assistance urgently—those low-acuity presentations, which we know happen a lot at the Lyell McEwin Hospital—to utilise that Medicare urgent care centre service, which is bulk billed, which is provided for extended hours nearby at Elizabeth as well. That is, of course, one of four urgent care centres that are being delivered across the area.

We know that there is a big issue in terms of access to primary care, particularly in the northern suburbs, and that impacts upon access to the Lyell McEwin Hospital as well. We are encouraged by the fact that the federal government, just in the past two weeks, have increased—in fact tripled—the bulk billing incentives for GPs, particularly for younger people and for concession cardholders. We are hopeful that we now see more and more practices resuming bulk billing, which will help many people who otherwise can't afford to pay out of pocket to go to a general practice.

Certainly, we have seen between October this year and October the year before that presentations at the Lyell McEwin Hospital increased from 5,860 up to 6,332, so it is an increase of 472 in the past year. That is a significant increase in presentations that are happening at that emergency department. That's why, while we have the bigger emergency department—which finally is now complete after many years of unfortunate delays—we need those additional beds behind the emergency department because otherwise people get stuck in the emergency department waiting for that inpatient bed, which obviously then means that the next patient from the waiting room or the ambulance ramp can't come into the emergency department to make sure that they can get the care that they need. That's why we are delivering those additional 48 beds at the Lyell McEwin Hospital as fast as we possibly can.