Code Yellow

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:19): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister advise the house what data was relied upon to inform the decision to lift the Code Yellow at our hospitals recently? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: On ABC radio on 16 August, the day the Code Yellow was lifted, ambulance union secretary, Leah Watkins, said, 'The conditions that exist today are worse than they were when the Code Yellow was called in the first place.'

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:19): I am happy to outline for the member and the house in terms of the decision-making that was made by Dr  Robyn Lawrence, the Chief Executive of the Department for Health and Wellbeing, in relation to the Code Yellow measures that were put in place. They were put in place in a period of significant strain on the health system. We are certainly not saying that that strain has been lifted, but what Dr Lawrence determined in terms of lifting that Code Yellow response was that the measures that were being put in place in an emergency way have now been embedded in terms of the ongoing response across the system.

Obviously, the noteworthy one of those was in relation to elective surgery. However, within a month, I believe, of the Code Yellow being called, some 95 per cent of those restrictions have been lifted. In fact, if you look at July figures compared to July the year before, some 15 per cent extra elective surgery took place than what happened in July last year. That accounts for some 495 extra patients receiving elective surgery than what happened that time last year. Obviously, there was still significant elective surgery taking place, but during winter it has to be managed against the capacity in the system.

Some of the measures that have been embedded in the system are better coordination between our hospitals, particularly also with the Ambulance Service, the State Health Coordination Centre and particularly also with our country hospitals. We are now working with our country hospitals better to repatriate people who are in city hospitals back to their country hospitals of origin in a faster way. That is helping to some degree in terms of what is really significant demand that our hospitals are seeing across the system.

But there is no doubt that we still face a lot of pressure in our system. We really welcome additional beds that came online over the weekend. That was a measure from the Treasurer's first budget and our election commitments, where we have already doubled the number of beds that we promised to deliver at Lyell McEwin Hospital. We said we would do 24. We have already done 48, and there is actually another 32 to come to get up to 80 additional beds at that hospital. That is an example of the extra capacity that we are bringing on wherever we possibly can across our system to meet that demand.

I would say the other factor that is a big pressure on our system at the moment is aged care. We have, I think, 208 patients in our system at the moment, who have been cleared for discharge, have had their ACAT assessment but are waiting to get into aged care and are stuck, effectively homeless in hospitals, waiting for that aged care. That is a federal government responsibility. We are raising this daily with the federal government. We need action from them to decant those patients, because there has been a doubling of that in just 18 months, and that is putting additional pressure on patients. Ultimately, those patients who are stuck in hospitals are suffering because of it, but also the other patients who are coming through the emergency department need access to those beds.