House of Assembly Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1) 55 1 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time Regional Health Services Regional Health Services Mr PEDERICK House of Assembly Hammond Regional Health Services Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (14:11): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. What actions, if any, will the government be taking to ensure residents in Tailem Bend have access to healthcare services? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain. Leave granted. Mr PEDERICK House of Assembly Hammond Mr PEDERICK: It was reported in The Advertiser today that patients of a regional clinic have been left shocked by the abrupt closure of a medical centre set to rob a region of access to GP services. The Murraylands Medical Centre at Tailem Bend is set to close this week, leaving regular patients confused after the shock announcement just before the doors are due to shut. 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) (14:12): Thank you very much to the member for his question. I think it was yesterday during question time that I became aware that there was a message sent out to patients at Tailem Bend from their GP clinic announcing that it would be closing and services transferred to Murray Bridge. Obviously, the first thing to say of course is that, as people would know, in Australia GP services are run by private businesses, but obviously we want to see them as prolific across the state as much as possible to ensure primary health care is available and we obviously work with the federal government that has primary responsibility for GP services across the country. Upon learning of that information yesterday, immediately after question time I spoke to Mr Wayne Champion who is the CEO of the Riverland Mallee Coorong Local Health Network. I know Wayne is similarly passionate about making sure primary healthcare services are available because we have just done a huge amount of work to restore those services in Karoonda. Where those services were no longer being provided, we are now restoring those services to the community. We have sought an exemption from the federal government to allow us to receive the Medicare funding for us to now provide those services. So obviously we were concerned to hear that news out of Tailem Bend. I also had contact from the member for MacKillop who has obviously been very concerned about this and has reached out in a very quick manner to express the concerns on behalf of his community about this. I spoke to Mr Wayne Champion about this. He was not aware that this had occurred. He was also concerned to hear this and has undertaken to have urgent discussions with the clinic to see what can be done in terms of making sure that we can restore those services to the Tailem Bend community, working between the local health network and, if necessary, obviously the federal government as well, because we don't want to have those services not be there and more pressure put on the acute services, which is obviously the primary responsibility of the state government.