Elective Surgery

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:22): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. How many patients have had elective surgeries cancelled across our health system this month? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mrs HURN: The ABC has reported this month that more than two dozen elective procedures at the Lyell McEwin Hospital alone have been cancelled. Elizabeth Murphy from SA Health stated on Monday this week, and I quote:

We are having to make some difficult decisions for patients who need overnight beds because the volume of patients in our hospitals is just so high.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:23): I am happy to chase the exact details of the figures, but let me be very clear that when it comes to elective surgery we have reduced the overdue elective surgery list by 990 patients, compared with what we inherited. This is a list that blew out under the previous government.

Mrs Hurn interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Schubert, you are on a final warning.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: This is a list that blew out under the previous government and the reference that we heard earlier from the Leader of the Opposition to figures in February 2022 was because there was a total ban on public and private elective surgery across the state.

Mrs Hurn interjecting:

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: We have not put such a ban in place as had happened—

The SPEAKER: Minister, please be seated. The member for Schubert, you leave me no choice. You are on a final warning. You may have additional questions. I have done my best with you: 137A, remainder of question time.

The honourable member for Schubert having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: In February 2022, no elective surgery was operating. What did we see in March 2022, which was the actual final month of the Marshall government? Ramping went right back up as soon as the elective surgery ban was lifted. In contrast, we haven't been issuing statewide bans of elective surgery. Our hospitals do have to make difficult decisions in terms of managing the number of beds that they have available to them on a day-to-day basis to make sure that patients can be seen appropriately. We know that our hospitals are under pressure, and that is why we need additional beds in our hospital system.

As the Premier has already outlined, we have commitments for 550 extra beds across our healthcare system. The vast majority of those need to be constructed to be able to open. Many of those projects are now underway. In many of those projects we have gone a lot further than we originally committed to do at the election.

For instance, at Flinders Medical Centre, where we committed to opening 24 additional beds at the election, we are now opening over 130 as part of our redevelopment there. At the Lyell McEwin Hospital we committed that we would open 24 more beds; we have doubled that now to 48 extra beds there. At Noarlunga Hospital, where we said that we would open 24 extra beds, we are now doubling that to 48 extra beds as well.

Sir, I know you know very well that people from your electorate have to come to the city to get the vast majority of their inpatient hospital services at the moment, which is why we are committed to rebuilding the Mount Barker hospital and tripling the number of beds in that area. All of these issues, all of these investments need to happen—not only to address ramping and flow and access block and ambulance response time issues but also to make sure that we have the capacity in our hospital system—

Ms Pratt interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Frome!

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —to make sure our elective surgery can continue to operate when there are periods of high demand as well. This is something that our hospital local health networks, with their boards and their management, operate on a daily basis. They try to make sure that this is avoided as much as possible, but sometimes there will have to be deferments of that elective surgery.

You can see from the results, you can see from the stats very clearly, that the overdue elective surgery list is down by almost a thousand people compared with what we inherited when we were elected. That is very clearly because we saw those bans of elective surgery in place and an artificial effect in terms of what was going on in the hospital system, but it lengthened people's waits. It made people wait longer for what is very important surgery for many people in our community.