Code Yellow

Ms PRATT (Frome) (14:36): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister advise what additional workforce protections, if any, are in place ahead of another Code Yellow? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms PRATT: Last Friday, the CEO of SA Health, Dr Robyn Lawrence, said on talkback radio:

I can't categorically tell you that we won't call another Code Yellow in due course for whatever reason that might be.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:37): Obviously, I support the comments from Dr Lawrence, which I'm sure would be the case as well if the opposition was in government. You can never tell what's going to happen in terms of the future, but what you can very clearly know is that, when you have more capacity in the system, you have more ability to be able to care for patients and that's why we are building hundreds and hundreds of additional hospital beds—330—to come online by the end of next year to provide significant additional capacity for patients who we need to care for but at the moment we don't have the appropriate number of hospital beds to care for.