King Electorate

Mrs PEARCE (King) (15:48): Over the weekend in Salisbury East one of the local high schools—Salisbury East High School—hosted a Show up and Shine. It was for motorbike, pushbike and car enthusiasts to be able to come together to launch this very, very special event. It was, in fact, planned by the Year 10 and 11 alternative learning students who planned the event as part of their EIF and community studies activity, which actually goes towards their SACE as well. There was absolutely something there for everyone. There was fantastic food and drinks and with that in mind I would like to thank the Dirty Devils Car Club for putting on a great barbecue, and a thankyou to the amazing students from the ALT cafe for keeping everybody fuelled throughout the day.

There was also live music cranking throughout the day, with many thanks to the local school rock band, keeping everybody absolutely revved and the energy and vibes high. I cannot overstate how truly impressive this event was, with so many across the school community working together to provide what they could to help ensure the event was an absolute success. Even the trophies were impressively created by some of the technology classes at the school.

It really was a beautiful showcase of what can be achieved by students at this school, students who have a variety of interests and skills but by being able to come together were able to create something truly beautiful, which they should all be so incredibly proud of. I am very confident that next year will be just as impressive and I encourage all car and bike enthusiasts to reach out to the school and get involved and support this great initiative.

Over the weekend, I was also out and about at Hillbank talking to local residents on the doors about a very serious priority of this government; that is, working on making our health system bigger and better. It was an opportunity to discuss the initiatives that we have announced and are delivering in our neighbourhood since coming into government.

I was particularly pleased to share that in August we delivered on our commitment to increase capacity at the Lyell McEwin Hospital. We have now opened 48 new beds, with more to come online in early 2025. On top of that, we also announced we will create an additional 12 new fast-tracked acute surgical beds that are also due to open in the first half of next year. On top of that, plans are progressing on 20 new acute beds that we announced in this year's budget, with South Australian business Cheesman Architects recently appointed to lead on the designs.

Once all these projects are complete, the hospital's bed capacity will increase by nearly 20 per cent—that is, 442 beds to 522. These extra beds being built at the Lyell McEwin Hospital are more than triple what we first committed to going into the election, which was, of course, to deliver 24 more beds. My constituents were so pleased to hear this and they also rightly asked about the staff, who are essential in ensuring that these beds can come online. I was really pleased to share with them that we have recruited more than 100 full-time equivalent healthcare workers to operate the beds, including 12 medical officers, 85 nurses, 12 allied health and pharmacy staff and four administrative roles.

What also has been welcomed in the community are other initiatives that are helping out in this space that we have implemented, initiatives such as weekend discharge, helping with the flow that we are experiencing within our hospital, the 16-bed crisis stabilisation centre that we are building adjacent to the Lyell McEwin Hospital, and, of course, the 24/7 pharmacy that has been established at Saints which, as I am really pleased to share, had seen as of 4 July this year over 26,000 customers who visited the Salisbury Plain Chemist Warehouse in the hours where the pharmacy would previously have been closed.

I am more than pleased to share with this house some of the feedback that I have received from my local community regarding this initiative. Tania is very grateful for the new opening hours. Donna has said that she uses it so often as she is a shiftworker. She said that it was much needed a long time ago and she is so glad that people are making the most of these services. Nikki, who is also a shiftworker, agrees with this sentiment, and Stephen has said that this place has been an absolute lifesaver.

Without this pharmacy being open at all hours of the night, customers like Tania, Donna, Nikki and Stephen may have had to visit the busy hospital emergency department to get the treatment they required or taken the risk to ignore seeking assistance, exacerbating the condition they faced. I look forward to continuing working with them for better outcomes.