Lifeblood

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (14:49): My question is to the Minister for Health. Can the minister confirm that Lifeblood has cancelled its regular visit to Minlaton to collect much needed blood and whether there are any plans to renew it in due course?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:50): Thank you to the member for Narungga for his question. I note his significant advocacy in relation to health services on Yorke Peninsula. Red Cross Lifeblood runs blood donation services across Australia and they do so under a national arrangement with all states and territories and the commonwealth government. They are a very trusted organisation across Australia. They have been doing an excellent job and we are very thankful for all of the Australians who roll up their sleeves and donate blood and plasma on a regular basis.

That enables many patients, people across Australia, to gain access to that blood but also many medicinal products that have been devised, particularly from plasma products across Australia. But, of course, as the member raises, not everybody has a donation centre located near them and particularly country South Australia relies upon mobile clinics going to areas to enable those donations to occur.

I will seek further inquiries in relation to the Minlaton clinic from Red Cross Lifeblood services in relation to whether there has been a cancellation and, if so, why that has occurred, and what else Red Cross Lifeblood will be doing to make sure that they can enable donations to happen across Yorke Peninsula, because I know that certainly in my previous meetings with them they are very committed to making sure that they can be available for regional South Australians to make those important donations.