Question Time

Ambulance Ramping

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (14:08): My question is to the Premier. When will ramping be fixed? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: Ramping figures released for October show that 3,322 hours were lost on the ramp, more than 450 hours worse than the worst month in the former Liberal government's four years in office.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:09): As we have outlined on many occasions in this house, this government has a comprehensive plan in terms of addressing the issues in the healthcare system that lead into ramping, and other issues in the system, ultimately leading to delayed ambulance response times. What we have inherited is a situation that has simply not enough capacity—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —in the hospital system—

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

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Morialta! The minister has the call.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: We simply inherited a situation where there is not enough capacity in our hospital system to make sure that people can get the treatment—

Mrs Hurn interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Schubert!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —that they need. So that is why we have taken every possible measure to make sure that we can increase the number of beds that we are operating. This government has provisioned—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Florey!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —a generational increase in the number of beds that we are committing across the system, because the issue that causes ramping is the issue where emergency departments become blocked with patients who are waiting for an inpatient bed elsewhere in the hospital system but they can't get one. Now, that is for a number of reasons. One is because we don't have enough beds—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Schubert!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Secondly, because we don't have alternative ways of helping people to be discharged from our system, one of which is significant barriers in terms of aged-care discharges meaning that we have on any day at least 100 people in our system who are waiting for alternative-care pathways, such as aged care. We need to do all of these things together, as well as making sure that there are alternative ways to make sure that people can get the care that they need outside the emergency department. So, in every strand of the healthcare journey we are investing extra resources, extra staff and extra beds to make sure that people can get the treatment that they need.

We have already opened a number of beds, but the majority we need to build, and we have projects underway to do so. At the Lyell McEwen Hospital we have 48 beds under construction right at the moment. At the Flinders Medical Centre—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —we have fast-tracked beds under construction at the moment. At The QEH we have beds which we had promised and which we committed to way back in 2017 and which will be opened next year as well. We have an upgraded emergency department under construction at Gawler at the moment. There are additional beds being constructed right now at the Repat site as well. All of those beds are essential to making sure that we can free up the emergency department for people who no longer need to be in the emergency department—

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

The SPEAKER: Member for Morialta!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —and make sure the patients can get from the waiting room or the ambulance ramp into the emergency department. Now, this is very different from the proposals that we previously saw of privatisation, of cuts, of bringing in the corporate liquidators, of sacking and making redundant nurses across the system. We have ended all of that. We are now investing. In our first year in office 550 extra clinicians have gone into the system, and we are seeing—

Mrs Hurn interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert is warned.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —the results of that where we have seen over the past six months continued improvement in terms of ramping hours, but we know that there is much more that needs to happen.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: We know that we need to invest more and we are doing so. We critically need—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Hartley!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —those additional beds in the system to make sure that people can get the care that they need, and there are no alternative proposals being put forward as to how to do that.

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

The SPEAKER: Member for Morialta!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: The shadow minister was asked this morning if she had any proposals—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —on what she would do and she was unable to answer a single measure—

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

The SPEAKER: Member for Morialta!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —she could identify in terms of doing so, whereas the additional beds, the additional staff, that we have highlighted, that we have put in the budget, that we are delivering on is what the clinicians back as a way to addressing this absolutely important issue.