Public Health System

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (14:57): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. How will blockages in commonwealth programs impact the public health system and what is the Malinauskas government undertaking in response?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:57): I thank the member for Torrens for her very important question. Just earlier today, the Premier and I were at Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre for a very important announcement in terms of the fact that we are adding even more additional beds to our healthcare system to make sure that South Australians can get the capacity and the care that they need.

This really is addressing what is a fundamental issue that has been emerging over the past year, which has been the number of patients in our healthcare system who have been stuck waiting for aged-care placements in the community. That figure has basically doubled in the past year and is now sitting at over 240 patients who are in our acute hospital system who are waiting to get into aged care.

That means that that bed is then not available for the next patient who needs it and it ultimately flows right the way through to our emergency departments. That's the equivalent of about a Modbury Hospital of beds taken out of the system because of the issues in the federal aged-care system. This is not just happening in South Australia; right across the country, health systems are grappling with this increasing problem of aged care.

It is certainly something that we are raising at the national level with ministers Butler and Wells to address. They have a bill before the federal parliament at the moment, which we are hopeful will go some way in terms of assisting. They have also provided some funding in terms of helping us to provide some outreach to aged care. We think that there is a lot more that needs to be done and this is certainly a key topic of discussion as part of federal health reform negotiations at the moment.

However, while this is occurring, while this problem is becoming exacerbated, we are having to take action into our own hands. Members may be aware that the Hampstead site was slated to be sold off. It was in the budget set up to be sold. When the new QEH clinical services building was opened, the idea was going to be that Hampstead would be emptied out and then that site sold off and no longer be part of the healthcare system. This government has had a different opinion to that; we have changed that proposition.

In the Mid-Year Budget Review last year, the Treasurer took that out of the budget and we have now committed to keeping Hampstead in public hands as part of the healthcare system ongoing. This means that we are now able to open up additional beds. Whereas before the previous plan had been no net increase in beds when those QEH beds came online, we are now able to expand the capacity and add 55 additional beds focused on this cohort of those aged-care patients who are stuck in our system, freeing up other beds in hospitals like the RAH, The QEH, Lyell McEwin and Flinders Medical Centre for other patients who need them.

Today we were able to inspect where we now have 25 of those beds open at Hampstead providing care and, importantly, making those connections for aged care to help people get to the next step, and then allowing the next patient to come through.

The good news is that with some renovations underway to fix up the next areas of that site, it will enable us to then open an additional 30 beds on that site so that we can provide more care for people and try to reduce that number of aged-care blockage that we face in the system. This comes at the same time, and we can see the connection of that all the way through the system to people calling 000 and needing an ambulance. We were able to release the ambulance response times today, which show that in the month of October, more people got an ambulance response for those lights and sirens emergencies on time than in any month in the past four years. So it is very welcome news for South Australians needing an ambulance.