Hammill House

The Hon. G.G. BROCK (Stuart) (14:39): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister update my community as to the current situation regarding the number of vacant rooms in Hammill House, which is the aged-care section of the Port Pirie Regional Health Service? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain further.

Leave granted.

The Hon. G.G. BROCK: I have been advised that with the recent vacating of the allied health building—which had to be vacated some time ago due to the pigeon infestation there—they have utilised the whole of the western wing and also one room of the aged-care facility, which is in the Hammill House section. I am also advised that there are currently seven vacant rooms that residents looking to go into aged care cannot utilise or be housed in. Is allied health going to utilise the whole of the spare rooms in the aged-care facility of Hammill House?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:40): I thank the member for Stuart for his question, and note his very significant interest in services in Port Pirie, particularly in terms of Hammill House as well.

I think last sitting week we talked about having to temporarily relocate a number of those allied health staff from their office accommodation in the previous community health building into other accommodation, either on the site or off site, while we are undertaking engineering and other types of assessments in terms of the work we need to do to get that old community health building up to scratch to return to office use. As the member has outlined, in Hammill House there was some capacity, so we have temporarily utilised some of those areas in Hammill House for that work to occur.

In terms of Hammill House more generally, as the member knows, and as he has been a very staunch advocate for, there was a period of time in which the board were considering the future of Hammill House and whether or not to keep Hammill House into the future. Based on the advice from the member for Stuart, I was very insistent that the board go out to the community and consult, and the feedback from the community was overwhelming in terms of the desire for Hammill House to continue.

The decision has now been made for Hammill House to continue, and the local health board, the Yorke and Northern Local Health Network, is going through a process of recruitment of additional staff to enable the capacity to increase. In the meantime, if there is demand on those beds then, of course, there would be a waiting list. The good news is that I am advised we currently do not have anybody on a waiting list to go into Hammill House, and we do continue to recruit.

I understand there was an assistant nurse lead hired in April, and I will certainly keep the pressure on the Yorke and Northern Local Health Network in terms of their future recruitment, because we do want to see the number of residents utilising Hammill House to increase. At the same time, we are working through the longer term arrangements in terms of those community health staff and office accommodation.