House of Assembly Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1) 55 1 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time Hammill House Hammill House The Hon. G.G. BROCK House of Assembly Stuart Hammill House The Hon. G.G. BROCK (Stuart) (14:24): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister update my community as to the progress of restoring Hammill House at Port Pirie to provide aged-care facilities, as it did prior to the review that has just been carried out? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain further. Leave granted. The Hon. G.G. BROCK House of Assembly Stuart The Hon. G.G. BROCK: I refer to the minister's press release on 27 August stating that the facility would remain as an aged-care facility. I have had several people with their loved ones trying to get into the facility but have been advised that they are not accepting any new patients even though there are existing beds, according to those people out there, and there has been no communication from the regional health board. The Hon. C.J. PICTON House of Assembly Kaurna Minister for Health and Wellbeing The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:25): I thank the member for Stuart for his question and his advocacy on behalf of health services in his local electorate and particularly Hammill House. For people who are not aware, Hammill House is an aged-care facility which is adjacent to the Port Pirie regional hospital. I think it is fair to say that certainly for many years the future of Hammill House was under a bit of a cloud. I think it was within the first year or so after the election there was certainly a recommendation to me from the Yorke and Northern Local Health Network that we should close down Hammill House as an aged-care facility. It is a recommendation I rejected. I asked the Yorke and Northern Local Health Network board to go to the community, to consult with the community, to undertake further work on aged-care resourcing and needs in the local area, which—surprise, surprise—did come back and say, 'We do need Hammill House in the future. We do need that aged-care facility and the capacity that it provides.' I was really delighted that we were able to announce that we will be keeping Hammill House and thank the member for his advocacy in relation to that. Hammill House got down to, I think, nine residents as of current, but we have committed to increasing that up to 18 residents. To do that, we will need to recruit additional staff. I understand that there is a recruitment process underway, and it is open at the moment. We are obviously hopeful that we will be able to recruit additional staff to open those additional beds and see more residents from the member's community being able to utilise the services at Hammill House. But it is also fair to say that we know, particularly in the Port Pirie area, that there is a need for more nurses, which is also why another area in which the member has been a strident advocate is about establishing a new training facility that we will be building at Port Pirie as well, working with providers such as Uni Hub to be able to train more nurses locally, undertake their practical training locally and create that pipeline for further nurses to work not just at places like Hammill House but at the hospital and private providers into the future. The essential answer to the member's question is we are recruiting additional staff to open those additional beds. Obviously, we want to do that as quickly as possible. I apologise to anyone who has been put on the waitlist while we are opening those additional beds. We are looking to do that as soon as possible to provide for that additional capacity for residents for aged care to receive that locally at Hammill House.