Mount Gambier Drug and Alcohol Services

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (14:56): My question is to the Minister for Health. Can the minister inform the community of Mount Gambier when the two drug and alcohol rehab beds will be delivered? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr BELL: It was announced in March 2022 that Mount Gambier and district hospital would receive two drug and alcohol rehabilitation beds. It's now almost the end of 2023 and building works have yet to commence.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:56): I thank the member for Mount Gambier for his question and his commitment to improving services in the Limestone Coast, particularly at the Mount Gambier hospital. The member is correct, absolutely: this government has committed to building two detox drug and alcohol beds at the Mount Gambier hospital. This is an important new component at the hospital, something that was called for by advocates in the Limestone Coast, particularly the substance abuse Limestone Coast network.

This has never happened before in terms of regional South Australia having access to detox beds. That's why we made it part of our commitment to the Limestone Coast in the previous election, and we are delivering on it in terms of our upgrades to Mount Gambier hospital more generally. This is part of a significant upgrade of the hospital. It includes upgrades to the emergency department in addition to mental health services at the hospital and also this drug and alcohol withdrawal unit.

We have committed $4.6 million to construct these two beds as a dedicated inpatient unit as well as the other upgrades in terms of mental health and upgrading the emergency department. The drug and alcohol withdrawal unit will be an extension to the adjacent medical unit ward, which will establish new facilities, including a multipurpose activity room, communal living and kitchen space, a staff meeting room, medication room and an enclosed landscaped courtyard. There is a significant amount of works that are involved in doing that, and those projects are well advanced in the design stage and about to go out to tender early next year as a single suite of works to be constructed.

The drug and alcohol beds and the new mental health beds will start construction, expected in the middle of next year, to be delivered and built by the end of 2025, with the earliest part of those works being the emergency department upgrade works that will start as the first package of works there. I thank the member for his question. I thank the advocates in the local area who have advocated for these services.

Importantly, this is seeking to address an issue where people who are affected by drug and alcohol addiction in the Limestone Coast, to be able to get access to these detox facilities and services, have had to come to Adelaide. That has been a significant barrier in terms of not only the access issues for people to do that but also dissuading a number of people from getting that help and getting the help they need to address their addiction.

We are very excited about having this as the first in-country facilities in South Australia of this type. Of course, then we also made commitments in terms of additional residential rehabilitation services in the Limestone Coast and I can give an update in relation to those too. These are, of course, for people who have already been through detox to get additional support in the community, and they have already operated successfully in Mount Gambier for some time.

However, we have now tendered and gone through a process where we have signed a contract with Uniting Communities to extend the work that they are already doing in the region to deliver six extra beds to that region, so we will increase to 12 the additional residential rehab beds. The combination of these detox beds in the hospital and the additional residential rehabilitation beds in the community is really going to give a big boost in terms of the drug and alcohol support that people in the Limestone Coast will be able to receive.